Matthew 23:25-28

TEXT: 23:25-28

25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and excess. 26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

a.

Is Jesus merely displeased with the way Pharisees washed their dishes? What are the cups and platters which are full of extortion and excess? Are the dishes to be understood literally or figuratively? If literally, how can they be full from extortion and excess? If figuratively, what do they represent here? Is it likely that the Pharisees would ever wash merely the outside of a dish and not also the inside with the same scrupulousness?

b.

In washing dishes one must work at cleansing both the inside and the outside. In the moral realm, however, Jesus thinks that cleansing the inside will actually cleanse the outside too. How does this work?

c.

How did it happen that such good men, as the Pharisees outwardly appeared to be, could actually involve themselves in the vicious sins of extortion and excess, hypocrisy and iniquity of which Jesus accuses them here?

d.

Are you a member of the true church of Christ whose members adhere to the strictest rule of piety and profess loyalty to God and faithfulness to His law? If so, what is there to keep any member of your congregation from committing any one of the great sins Jesus exposes here? What practical steps are you taking to keep this from happening? Is your plan working?

e.

What are the things that truly contaminate or defile the modern Christian?

f.

Does it really matter to you if your life is corrupted by the uncleanness around you? Does purity of heart really matter to you? What, specifically, are you doing to purify your heart?

PARAPHRASE

How terrible for you, doctors of the Law and Pharisees, you fakes! You polish the outside of the cup and plate, but fill them with the plunder from your greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First polish the inside of the cup and plate, and the outside will be clean too. How terrible for you theologians and Pharisees, hypocrites! You resemble sepulchers covered with whitewash: on the outside they look fine, but on the inside they are full of dead men's bones and rotten stuff! You are just like that: from the outside you seem to others to be saintly people, but you have hearts brimful of pretense and lawlessness.

SUMMARY

Behavior modification that does not involve the transformation of man's hearthis intellect, conscience, desires and willmust be declared a miserable failure. Mere external change leaves the greed and the self-indulgence that lies at the root of all moral anarchy.

NOTES
Cleansing the Outside

Matthew 23:25 Woe unto you. for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and excess. (Cf. Luke 11:39.) Jesus-' language sparkles with brilliant satire as He sketches a line of Pharisees busily washing dishes with great ceremony and seriousness. Inexplicably, however, they are scrubbing only the outside of the cup and platter. In Scene II we see these same sectarians loading their plates and cups with food obtained by their exploitation of others. From these they eat to excess.

Here again Jesus-' caricature of Pharisean piety concerns obedience to a command of God that all Israel maintain ceremonial purity even to the extent of washing contaminated objects such as cups and platters (Leviticus 11:32), a law rigorously respected and expanded by this party (Mark 7:4). From the standpoint of Pharisean theology, this section neatly connects with the preceding, because, along with punctilious tithing, scrupulous Levitical purity was one of the characteristic trademarks of the orthodox Pharisee. (Cf. Edersheim, Life, I, 312.) Remember the water-pots at the Cana wedding feast, intended for purification (John 2:6). But that the Lord does not mean to criticize the way Pharisees washed their dishes is evident, because a PHARISEE, careful enough to scrub the outside, would surely be scrupulous to cleanse the inside too. But, by a surprising switch expressed by the contrast, the outside. but within, He draws attention to a stark contradiction in what the Pharisees themselves are doing. Although earnestly scrupulous with the meticulous cleaning of their dinner plates, they show no concern that these same dishes are re-polluted by the ill-gotten food and drink with which they are filled. Note His wording: within they are full FROM extortion and excess (ex harpagês kaì akrasìas). He speaks, not merely of the contents of the plates, but also of the source of their content.

1.

Extortion (harpagês) is the act of plundering, but, used of superpious hypocrites like the Pharisees, Jesus may refer to the unfair use of their legal rights to extract wealth from others. For example, appearing to labor honestly, they used their inside knowledge of the Law and their contrived definitions to rob people. With cruel finesse they could deprive a widow of her living or property, and, by Jesus-' account, often did (Mark 12:40 = Luke 20:47; cf. Isaiah 10:1 f.). Not unlikely the Pharisee could fully justify this rapaciousness to himself, arguing that foreclosure on a widow's mortgage was his just due. But, because of the heartlessness it involved, the Lord rules it extortion!(Cf. Exodus 22:22-27; Deuteronomy 24:17 f; Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Deuteronomy 10:14-22; Proverbs 15:25; Proverbs 23:10 f.; Jeremiah 7:6; Jeremiah 22:3.) It is not because they did not have the right, but because their sinful, unquenchable thirst for more (pleonexia, greed) betrayed itself in a ruthless, at least formally legal, exploitation of the weak. (Cf. Luke 16:14 f.) It is a fraudulent use of God's Law to utilize it to impoverish His people (1 Timothy 1:8; cf. Leviticus 25:25 ff.; Deuteronomy 15:1-11; Deuteronomy 23:19 f; Deuteronomy 24:6; Deuteronomy 24:10-13)!

2.

Excess (akrasìas, literally, lacking self-control, intemperate, incontinent). However, in what way does Jesus intend this accusation?

a.

In the TAKING of what fills his bowls? If so, this Pharisee, normally a strait-laced bigot that holds everyone else to the letter of the law, indulges himself, taking liberties by bending the rules for his own convenience. He does not hold himself to the law.

b.

Or in the USING of what fills his bowls? Undoubtedly, the self-indulgent Pharisee could rationalize any intemperance in meat or drink by asking, Am I not to enjoy God's lavish reward for my righteousness? Should I not eat and drink to the full so as to do justice to His bounty?!

Thus, it could be both, since in this case excess in taking unbridled liberties with the law and the property of others furnished the hypocrite with opportunity for further self-indulgence.

So, by their excessive attention to ritual purity (cleansing the outside of the cup and platter) these pretenders purchased a reputation for being saintly men with whom everyone could trust the safe-keeping of their soul and earthly property. But from behind this smoke-screen of apparent rigorousness, they struck their unsuspecting victims with the viciousness and venom of a rattlesnake. Whether or not the Pharisees intended this facade as a hunter's blind to conceal their true intentions and movements, this was virtually its function.

Matthew 23:26 Thou blind Pharisee: see notes on Matthew 23:13. Blind to the iniquity in their own lives, they neither discerned it nor hated it. So, to unmask it to their face is to make possible their salvation. (Cf. Revelation 3:17 ff.; Jeremiah 4:14; Psalms 51:2; Psalms 51:7; Psalms 51:10.) They were blind to Old Testament religion that taught heart purity as the only definitive condition whereby external cleansing had any validity. They were blind not to perceive that to fill their cup and platter with the loot from their extortion and intemperance rendered them UNCLEAN because SIN POLLUTES everything it touches more so than any Levitical contamination ever could! So, Jesus opens their eyes to the obvious solution: Get to the source of your problem: clean up the inside first and the rest will be easy!

Now, if the inside of the cup and the platter are rendered impure by what filled them, i.e. by the tainted contents obtained by oppressing others, then the command, cleanse first the inside, must mean: (1) earn your food honestly, (2) eliminate those crooked methods, i.e. the plunder and license, that formerly furnished your food and drink. The only ethical way to remove the fruits of plunder is to return everything extorted to the victims. Zacchaeus understood this and applied Jesus-' teaching correctly, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold (Luke 19:8; cf. Exodus 22:1-15).

The foregoing interpretation takes Jesus-' words more or less literally as referring to the spiritually proper approach to decontamination of literal eating vessels. But is Jesus merely interested in teaching Pharisees the truly godly way to wash their dishes, so they will be Levitcally pure with the cleanness God intended in the Mosaic Law? If so, His point and its immediate application ends here.

On the other hand we may ask whether Jesus carries in His mind here the same concept He expressed earlier (Luke 11:39-41), where He discussed tò éxôthen and tò ésôthen, the outside and inside of the Pharisees-' lives. There He referred to their hidden motives and their observable, external conduct, a point, incidentally, which He will underscore in His next illustrations (Matthew 23:27 ff.). So it is not uncontextual to think of this meaning as underlying His thought even here (v. 26). There He said, The inside of you is full of extortion and wickedness (Luke 11:39: tò dè èsôthen humôn gémei harpagês kaì ponçrías). They had not seen that He who made the outside made the inside too and were ordered to give for alms those things which are within with the result that everything is clean for you. Thus, if Jesus is speaking in metaphors, the vessels stand for the human soul. the external cleansing, then, is the Pharisean attempt to change external behavior without getting at the true cause of all defilement, the sin deep in man's heart, whereby he corrupts everything he touches.

Cleanse first the inside. that the outside thereof may become clean also, means: Deal with a man's heart and those sins of the spirit that make him act the way he does! When his heart belongs to God by sanctification, whatever that man does or says will reflect his inner cleansing. (Ezekiel 36:25-27; James 4:7 f. pictures people of polluted hands [deeds] and impure hearts [mixed motives] as double-minded. Such hypocrites have a public image and a private life that are in conflict. Cf. Titus 1:15 f. Thus, total cleansing and unconditional submission to God is the only route back to sanity and freedom, to joy and true exaltation.) Get rid of your extortion and excess by a truly godly repentance and holiness in your private life, and the external ceremonies of your religion will be properly observed as a matter of course. Jesus-' solution (Luke 11:40 f.) prescribed turning the greed that filled them into practical generosity to the poor, and to the surprise (kaì idoù) of the new regenerated hearts, they would find everything truly pure for them, because a clean heart produces a clean life and pure actions. (See notes introductory to the Sermon on the Mount.

Concealing the Inside

Again Jesus illustrates the concept taught in the preceding charge: the fallacy of scrupulous concern for externals that neglects a revolving inner character. Because He explained His own meaning, let Him be our Teacher:

Matthew 23:27

Matthew 23:28

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

for ye are like unto whited sepulchers which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Men whited sepulchers for two reasons:

1.

So they could be identified as tombs lest passersby defile themselves through unconscious contact with the dead (cf. Numbers 19:11-16). In Luke 11:44 Jesus taught that men were defiled by touching an unmarked tomb, since there was nothing to warn people of its presence. Consequently, white-washing remedied this defect. Here (Matthew 23:27 f.), however, His point is different, because Pharisees, as whited sepulchers, would presumably warn others that the defilement of death and corruption is near. Further, no Pharisee would have believed that others-' contact with his superior holiness could do anything but bless. Hence, he certainly would not have warned others to avoid him by whitening the sepulcher.

2.

So they would appear outwardly beautiful is the reason given here by the Lord for their white-washing (cf. Matthew 23:29). A beautified funerary monument can be a masterpiece. But this work of art, although it reflect the taste and skill of its builder, is inwardly full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. The eye-pleasing exterior beguiles the beholder into supposing the tomb's contents to be innocuous, rather, as lovely as it facade. Unhappily, this mistake leads as surely to his contamination as if the grave had never been marked and he stumbled onto it by accident,

Outwardly ... inwardly: it is precisely this difference between a person's real character and his public reputation that distinguishes the hypocrite. This is true whether or not the hypocrite is fully aware of the dissimilarity. (See on Matthew 23:13, blind guides.) Nevertheless, what a man is inwardly, what he does secretly, when he supposes himself most alone, this is what he is. Any distinction between this and what he wants others to know about him gauges the depth of his dissimulation. Barclay (Matthew, II, 328) graphically sketched this fake:

A man may walk with bowed head, and reverent steps, and folded hands in the posture of humility, but all the time he may be looking down with cold contempt on those whom he regards as sinners; his very humility may be the pose of pride; and as he walks so humbly, he may be thinking with relish of the picture of piety which he presents to those who are watching him.

Ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Even Josephus (Ant. XVII, 2, 4) documents their fraudulent faith: they valued themselves highly upon the exact skill they had in the law of their fathers, and made men believe they were highly favoured by God. Then he described how the Pharisees led some noble women on with deception, enticing them to do what was against their best interests. Undoubtedly, the Pharisean ideal was, as indeed our own must be, the beauty of holiness. (Cf. Psalms 29:2; Psalms 96:9.) But their legalism, as also Christian legalism, produces this unvarying result: outwardly, the convert is cleaned up and freed from the crasser forms of paganism. By focusing his attention on trying to conform to a set of commonly accepted rules without the soul-transforming power of a new birth (John 3:10), he produces an impressive show of religiousness. By fulfilling the role expected of him by his ecclesiastical community, he appears righteous to his peers, notwithstanding the contradiction between his private reasons for keeping the rules and the public impression he makes on others. Luke (Luke 16:15) suggests that their external white-washing was not mere moral cosmetics, but immoral pride that justifies itself to convince others of its goodness. God, however, always discerns the not-always-obvious difference. (Cf. 1 Samuel 16:7.) To appear righteous before men had been their goal so as to enjoy human approval, rather than that of God who sees and judges the darkest secrets of men's hearts. And it will then be small comfort to. hypocrites, to remember how creditably and plausibly they went to hell, applauded by all their neighbors (Matthew Henry, V, 339). So, despite the Pharisees-' best intentions, their hypocritical character was itself a necessary, natural product of their system of social reform. By laying great stress on patient, punctilious performance of lesser precepts while (perhaps unconsciously) neglecting the love, justice, mercy and faith that really count with God, they created a dichotomy that corrupted their own hearts and others by real iniquity.

In strident contrast with Pharisean pretentions to be honored by others (Matthew 23:6 f.), Jesus explains why they should be avoided! Anyone in the company of a Pharisean rabbi, whose unimpeachable external conduct exuded an intensely religious atmosphere of earnest piety, would probably consider himself twice blessed, not realizing how defiling or how morally compromising such company really is. Although not every Pharisee deliberately concealed his true character from others, he nonetheless spread the moral contagion Jesus describes in this chapter, and no one suspected anything. No wonder Jesus alerted others to this danger!

The Fundamental Principle Is Moral Purity

Other texts of Scripture, that speak of Christian purity and its defilement, point clearly to SIN IN THE HEART as the source of true contamination. (Cf. Matthew 5:8; Matthew 5:21 f., Matthew 5:28 f., Matthew 5:37; Matthew 5:44 f.; Matthew 6:1; Matthew 6:3; Matthew 6:6; Matthew 6:18; Matthew 6:24; Matthew 6:33 f.; Matthew 15:19.) Other texts underline the motive for everything we do. (Cf. 1 Timothy 1:5; Ephesians 6:24; 1 Peter 1:22.) Others warn that desire for social approval can corrupt good morals. (1 Corinthians 15:33 f.; James 4:4; John 5:44.) Other texts furnish incentive to remove all corruption, by describing the respective destiny of the corrupt and of the pure. (Cf. Revelation 21:7 f., Revelation 21:27; Revelation 22:11-15.) So, the contradiction between inner and outer self-expression can be overcome, when the inner good character is the only true motive for our outward actions and attitudes, even if we are repeatedly anguished to see how often our practice falls short of our ideals. Moral consistency is obtainable, paradoxically, by confessing that we do not possess it, because in the confession we strip aside the veil that hides our inner self (James 5:16). Moral purity can be had by being constantly aware that God, whose praise or blame counts with us, sees every discrepancy between motives and conduct, and by our living so as to have only one motive behind all that we do: to please Him (2 Corinthians 5:9-11; 2 Corinthians 5:14 f.).

FACT QUESTIONS

1.

What are the cups and plates which the Pharisees washed?

2.

To what Mosaic law is reference made in the allusion to dishwashing?

3.

Explain how the cups and plates could be full from extortion and rapacity.

4.

Explain what is meant by cleansing the inside of such vessels so that the outside would also be clean.

5.

Explain the allusion to whitewashed tombs and tell why they furnished so apt an illustration of Pharisean character.

6.

Explain how Pharisees-' own hypocrisy is the necessary, natural product of their own system of social reform.

7.

What other Biblical passages speak to the subject of uncleanness and purity in the life of Christians?