Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.” [Mark 7:6-8 (NLT)]
Throughout Scripture, we find Jesus at odds with the Pharisees, one of the most important Jewish sects of the day. Not priests, the Pharisees were laymen (mostly merchants and tradesmen) who zealously followed Mosaic Law, often by adding non-Biblical traditions to it. Considered interpreters of the law, they were known for their austere life style and vast knowledge. The Pharisees accepted the oral explanations and additions of earlier generations to be equally inspired and authoritative as the written words of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible).
These oral traditions consisted of highly specific rules and regulations that were based on the belief that, when God gave Moses the written law on Mt. Sinai, He also elaborated on how those laws were to be kept. Unwritten, those explanations became oral tradition. This devotion to oral law developed during Judah’s Babylonian captivity. Jerusalem’s destruction and their exile was God’s punishment for the neglect of His law so it’s understandable that no one wanted to endure God’s wrath again. Restrictions evolved that were designed to “build a hedge” around the Torah and guard against any possible breach of the law, whether by ignorance or accident.
With their detailed laws regarding nearly every aspect of life, the Pharisees were legalists. Jesus didn’t approve of the way they’d replaced God’s simple law with complex man-made laws that placed a heavy burden on the people—a burden that God hadn’t given them. Although work on the Sabbath clearly was prohibited, the Pharisees determined that meant a tailor could not carry a needle stuck in his coat, someone couldn’t carry ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet, and no one could spit on the ground because that might make a hole, which would be digging, which would be work! It was the Pharisees who said the disciples had sinned by reaping and preparing food on the Sabbath when they picked heads of grain off their stalks!
Jesus criticized the Pharisees’ devotion to the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law: love of God and love of neighbor. Some of the Pharisees’ man-made rules, such as a loophole allowing people to renege on promises, actually helped them get around God’s law. If someone swore by the Temple or the altar, the oath wasn’t binding but, if someone swore by the gold of the temple or the offerings on the altar, it was! Because of their inability to be consistent in their interpretation of oral and written laws, Jesus compared the Pharisees to the blind leading the blind.
For many Pharisees, there was a disparity between what they professed (righteousness) and what they put into practice (self-righteousness). Jesus certainly didn’t like the gap between what they proclaimed and what they actually practiced and frequently called them out for their pretense and hypocrisy.
There’s much we can learn from the Pharisees: not to be pompous, hypocritical, judgmental prigs is perhaps the most obvious. That we shouldn’t think we can earn heaven by following a false gospel of salvation through works is another. The hardest lesson is probably the most subtle: never to confuse human dogma for Godly doctrine. When we give our personal preferences or denominational rules and traditions equal billing to God’s law, as did the Pharisees, it’s easy to become pompous, hypocritical, judgmental prigs.
In a “Baby Blues” comic strip, Zoe, the big sister approaches her brother and tells him, “About that fight we had a while ago…I would like to extend an olive branch.” With a panicked look on his face, the little brother screams, “MOM!!! Zoe’s threatening me with a stick!” Having had an older brother who delighted in tormenting me, I completely sympathized with the little boy. There were times when my brother just had to come near me and I would frantically call out, “Mom, Steve’s hitting me again!” I wanted to avoid another painful punch but, who knows, maybe one of those times he, like Zoe, was just offering an olive branch.
In writing about the Sinner’s Prayer yesterday, I wondered if, by saying it, a new believer gets the false impression that his responsibility ends with a prayer when, in fact, it has just begun! Justification takes only a moment but sanctification takes a lifetime. Addressing the guilt of our sins, justification is when, by the grace of God, we are made righteous through God’s grace and our faith. It’s as if we’re guilty criminals, standing in God’s courtroom, and God pardons us. Telling us our debt to society has been paid, He sets us free. While it’s easy to walk out of the courthouse, it’s not so easy to alter the behavior that led to our life of crime. Like any felon, we need to change our ways, which is where sanctification comes in. Rather than the reformation of a criminal, it is the transformation of a sinner.
I’ve been reading The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. I vaguely remember reading some of this 1678 allegory in senior English class but that time it was in the original Middle English (the language of the King James Bible) and difficult to read. Although I thought myself a Christian, I was unfamiliar with most of the biblical references and concepts. In reality, all I wanted to do was to get through it (along with Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, and Ulysses). With less pressure, more biblical knowledge, and an annotated modern version, I’m actually enjoying the tale of Christian: a man who leaves his home in the City of Destruction in search of the Celestial City.
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. [Ephesians 5:15-17 (ESV)]
Knowing it was important for both the leaders and the people to be reminded of their rights and duties, Moses instructed the people that every seven years the Book of the Law was to be publicly read to the entire nation (including children and foreigners). This reading was to be done following the Feast of Shelters during the Sabbath year.
Devotions of the Heart 