Wednesday, August 18, 2021 PM

Luke 11:42-54 and the Woes Against the Pharisees

Okay, Luke, and we'll pick it up in verse 42. The Pharisees have, the Pharisee invited him to come eat with him and the Pharisee and the Pharisees are shocked and appalled that Jesus did not follow proper custom when he ate.

So, this Jesus replies with a little bit of humor, a little bit of sarcasm, and then he begins in a list of woes, beginning in verse 42. But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe, mint, and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God.

These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like graves which are not seen and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.

Then one of the lawyers answered and said to him, Teacher, by saying these things you reproach us also. And he said, Woe to you also lawyers, for you load men with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets and your fathers killed them. In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers, for they indeed kill them and you build their tombs.

Therefore the wisdom of God also said, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation.

From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple, yes I say to you it shall be required of this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge.

You did not enter in yourselves and those who were entering in you hindered. And as he said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail him vehemently and to cross-examine him about many things, lying in wait for him and seeking to catch him in something he might say that they might accuse him.

Jesus Shines Light on Hidden Darkness

Anything odd? Anything odd in the text stands out to you? He's not looking for fellowship, that is correct, although he did accept the invitation to go sit down with him. What an opportunity. He had just spoken about those who are in darkness.

He said if your eye is dark, the eye is the lamp of the body you see, but if your eye is dark, how great a darkness you are in. So he accepts the invitation from this Pharisee who is in that category of the eye being dark, so dark that their entire life is full of darkness.

But he's the light of the world. So he accepts this invitation and he goes and he sits down and he begins to shed light on the darkness and it sounds like, whoa, whoa, whoa, but he's not looking for fellowship, he's shining the light.

Any other curiosities in the text? Things that, that seems kind of strange. Yes sir? Interesting, isn't it? It was a long time ago. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Why the blood of Abel? And we don't know who this Zechariah fellow was.

There's no record of the Zechariah in the Bible being killed by opposing forces, so this must have been somebody who was a contemporary, somebody who was killed, but we don't know who this person was from Abel to Zechariah, but it is kind of funny from A to Z, in our own way of saying it.

That's not how it works in the Greek language. Okay, but I think that's easy to remember, Abel to A to Z, Abel to Zechariah, guilty of the whole thing. Yeah, that's an interesting question we need to answer.

Why would they be guilty of the blood of Abel? And all the prophets. Now Jesus begins to explain a little bit of that, doesn't he? When the lawyers or the scribes, some translation may have scribes, they're called lawyers not because they're attorneys helping people sue each other.

These are lawyers in the sense that they write out the law of Moses, the Torah. They're copyists of the scriptures, and you may imagine then that they are well versed in the scriptures then. The fact that they're copying them out.

Scribes did a very important job in the providence of God. They knew how many letters were in each line of each book of the Bible. They knew how many words were in every book of the Bible. They were using that as a way to catch whether or not they were doing so, whether they were copying properly.

When they were copying in the Hebrew, they had marks on the page that marked the central letter on a line of all the letters, in all the words of one line. They would mark the center just as a visual to keep them on track when they were making.

So they were very, very careful about making copies. And they were experts. If anybody wanted to know something about the Bible, you could ask a lawyer, you could ask a scribe. They spent so much time copying God's word.

These were Bible experts. And the Pharisees, in the customs and ways of obeying the law, they were the experts in holiness. So the scribes, you see, were the experts in terms of how to follow the law.

The scribes were experts in knowledge about the Bible. The Pharisees were experts on how to be holy. And Jesus says woe to them both and says, oh experts in holiness, you are unholy. Oh experts on the law, you are corrupt and break the law.

Oh experts on the Bible, you hide the key of knowledge and don't even have it. So he hits them at their most basic function, their calling card, their point of pride. The thing that they're known for, Jesus says, you're not.

Like what they say about conservatism. Conservatism is great except for the fact that it's not conservative and it doesn't conserve. Yeah. In that case, what Jesus is saying, oh holy men, you're great except for the fact that you're unholy and defile everything else around you.

He's coming straight at them for what they think they're to be respected for. They're in darkness and they don't know the light. They're so blind they don't even know that they're blind. And so Jesus is shining light on the situation.

This is their opportunity to repent. This is their opportunity to repent. Let's consider, first of all, what he says to the Pharisees. Are concerned about tithing their herbs, which would be pretty difficult to do.

Make sure you got a tenth of your basil, you know, a tenth of your mint and rue and they're tithing down to the least bitty grains of things. They're giving away a tenth. But they pass by justice in the law of God.

Jesus has another saying in Matthew where he says, you strain gnats and swallow camels. They had a little cloth that they would pour the wine through the cloth, a pitcher of wine. Gnats would settle, you know, hey, gnats want a free meal, so they're all over the wine.

And they would pour the wine through a cloth into their cup that would strain the gnats so they would not put anything unholy into their mouth. And he said, you strain gnats, but you swallow camels. Now, how many gnats and other critters do you think live on a camel?

That's the that's the joke. And here they're tithing their herbs, but ignoring the justice and the love of God. And he says, woe to you, Pharisees. You love the best seats in the synagogue and greetings in the marketplaces.

The reason why you do all these things is because you bring attention to yourself. It's like the strict, not-so-strict Amish who, in terms of, they don't want their picture taken or anything. We don't want to be noticed.

We're trying to, we don't want anyone to pay an inordinate attention to us because drawing attention to yourself is a form of pride. And that's why we don't wear buttons and drive around in carriages and wear really weird clothing because we don't want anyone to pay attention to us.

And then he says, you are like graves which are not seen and the men who walk over them are not aware of them. Now, he's not saying open, like an open grave, like, you know, somebody dug a six foot hole and forgot to cover it up and then somebody, you know, falls into it.

He's making fun of one of their finer points of holiness. You know, in the biblical text, in the Old Testament, it says that if you touch a dead man, if you touch a corpse, you're unclean for a certain amount of time.

So, the Pharisees, in building a fence around the law, said, well, if you touch a dead man, you're unclean. But, you know, wouldn't that also go if you walked over a grave? What if you walked over a grave?

I mean, the body is making the ground unclean and you walked over the ground. And now you're unclean. Even more so, they said, certain times of day to be careful. Because they said, if the sun is shining in a certain way and your shadow is cast over the ground of a grave where a dead body is, you're also unclean.

So, Jesus is poking at them and he says, well, you know, you holy men are like hidden graves, which are, you know, totally unclean. And everybody is walking all over you and they're getting unclean too.

Like, in all of your efforts to be holy, in fact, you're actually very unholy and you're contaminating everybody around you. So, that's his woe, his final woe to the hypocrites, these false-faced individuals.

The lawyers are taking up for their comrades. Like, hey, you know, they're in the same business we are, kind of. You know, when you go after the Pharisees like that, you're coming after us. And Jesus says, correct, you're right.

And here's the woes for you. Because they're blind and they need to see the light. And so, he begins to shine light on the situation. And he says, two things that kind of go together are this. You loathe men with burdens, harboring a key of knowledge you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.

In other words, you have this picture of people just trying to get along in life. And these lawyers come alongside them and say, well, let's make it a lot harder. Not that I have to do these things, but you really ought to.

You know, holiness involves, if you're really going to be holy, then you need to do all of these things in order to be holy. Here's our reading of the law. And so they put extra burdens on people, but they're not going to help them with it.

They're just going to condemn them with it. And then at the end, he says, you take away the key of knowledge. They're not entering into the kingdom. They're not entering into salvation. And everything they're doing is keeping others from entering in as well.

And they're very zealous in this, like Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus was very zealous in doing all of this before Jesus confronted him. So he's saying, woe to these lawyers, those who knew the scriptures best, who could have been a pipeline of gospel preaching, of being justified by faith, like Abraham.

They totally missed it and messed it up. But he does tell them that they're guilty of this generation. Now, the word generation, Jesus says this generation. He means everybody. He's not talking to just the generation.

And he says, and of course, these are the leaders of this generation. This generation, he said that was wicked and demanded a sign. He's pronouncing judgment upon this generation. The generation right in front of them.

He says that this generation, of this generation will be required the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world required of this generation. From Abel to Zechariah. He immediately makes a connection, he shows a connection between the Israelites, the Jews of old and the Jews of the present day.

Your fathers killed the prophets. Prophets led a very dangerous life. And they were usually under threat of losing their head or being stoned and so on and so forth. And many prophets were killed by the Jews who were in rebellion against God.

The Jews back then that were killing off the prophets, they were idolatrous covenant breakers. They were breaking the covenant, they were under the judgment of God. Horrible things were happening to them.

Foreign oppressors controlling their territory, famine, disease, all sorts of horrible things happening to them. And the prophet would say, thus saith the Lord, you're breaking the covenant and that's why he's judging you.

Reference Deuteronomy 28 and 29. And then people didn't like that message. And then they would kill a bunch of the prophets and abuse them. And so Jesus said, just like they used to do, so you're doing now.

Idolatrous, foreign armies, foreign people are taking over your country, still oppressing you. You have all these diseases, all this famine, all this horrible thing happening to you because you're still covenant breaking idolaters.

There's a connection between the generations prior and the generation present. He strengthens the connection by saying, they killed the prophets and you build the tombs of the prophets. At this time, there was a lot of building going on and they would like to, oh, here's a tomb for Jeremiah, or here's a tomb for David, or here's a tomb for Isaiah.

And they would make these tombs and they would beautify them and they would make them look very, very impressive. And it was kind of a sign of holiness that you would do such a thing. And Jesus said, you know, when you do that, you're just showing that you're the children of those who killed the prophets.

You obviously approved of what they did to them because you're building these tombs, these monuments to killing prophets. I don't think they received that very well. But he does say, I'm going to send, Jesus says, I'm going to send you prophets and apostles and you're going to kill some of them and persecute them and so on.

In Matthew 23, he says the very same thing after the parable of the evil tenants. He says, I'm going to send you prophets. I'm going to send you the apostles. I'm going to send people who come and preach the word of God and you're going to kill them and imprison them and persecute them.

And he says it there in Matthew 23 as well. And this generation will be held accountable for all the blood of all the prophets killed from Abel all the way to the present day. Well, that's hardly fair.

But this generation was going to witness and suffer under the end of the old covenant. This generation was going to see the destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple and the end of the old covenant.

So what Jesus said is true. It was required. And what did now? Every single prophet, Peter tells us that the prophets in the Old Testament spoke as the spirit of Christ was in them, declaring the truths of God.

And just like in the parable of the evil tenants, they would abuse the servants, the prophets who came, or they would even kill them until finally the Son came. And what do they do with the Son? Oh, this is the heir.

If we get rid of him, we'll inherit the whole thing. So they kill the Son thinking they'll inherit the whole thing. But what they get is judgment. By rejecting Christ, they, by killing Christ, they show their rejection and their agreement with their participation in the destruction of all the prophets, the opposition of all the prophets that God sent.

And so they show themselves to be covenant breakers, idolatrous covenant breakers. And so Jesus says, the blood will be required of this generation. And what did they say? His blood be upon us and our children.

That's what they said. And Jesus, of course, is the true prophet. And he said this is going to happen. And so it did. So that's the curiosity of how that ends up being fulfilled. So these lawyers and the Pharisees, they're supposed to be the holy ones.

They're supposed to be the righteous ones. They're supposed to be the understanding ones. But they're unholy and they're corrupt and they are ignorant. So they're nothing, they don't come, they're not really as advertised.

But so Jesus is, what is he doing here? Well, he's exercising his prerogative as the judge of all men. And he knows what's in the heart of men. And so he is judging with righteous judgment and exposing these things.

He's not judging them based on popular opinion about their appearance. Apparently the Pharisees were highly respected and a lot of them were dearly loved. They received greetings in the marketplaces. They had lots of titles and names.

Many of them were very popular. And everyone really revered and appreciated the scribes and what they did in copying God's holy word. These were celebrated persons in Jesus' day. But he judges them according to righteous judgment.

And so what he shows is a very important thing and he does it in front of everybody. It's very important that outside of Christ, outside of the light of God, we cannot escape unholiness, we cannot escape corruption, we cannot escape ignorance.

These were the most men in the history of the world. They had the entirety of the Old Testament, both in Hebrew and translated into the Septuagint and the Koine Greek, the common language. So they had plenty of opportunity to have the scripture.

They lived in Jerusalem. They had this beautiful golden temple. They were given so many opportunities and yet, they could not be holy on their own, even though they really tried a lot. They couldn't be holy.

Their best efforts left them unholy and defiled. They couldn't be righteous on their own efforts and their own rules, though they really, really tried. They had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

And they pursued righteousness and ended up corrupt and unrighteous, Paul says in Romans 10. And although they had all this information that they thought was very vital, they were in complete ignorance about what it actually meant.

But these were the most careful scholars the world has ever seen, as they handled the Word of God with exquisite care. Exquisite care. This is just an example of, you cannot work your way, improve your way, to God.

It all depended on Christ, the light of the world. Their response was to assail him vehemently, cross-examine him, and so on and so forth, trying to catch him and accuse him. A lot of people ask questions about Christianity, not because they're curious and want to know, but because they're trying to prove it wrong and excuse themselves.

And that's nothing new. Now, if someone's asking questions because they are curious, wonderful. Wonderful. But sometimes people are asking tough questions and rapid-fire questions and so on because they're just trying to hide and they're trying to say to themselves, well, if so-and-so can't answer my 25 questions in 25 minutes, then this isn't genuine.

The reason for that is they're trying to hide. They're trying to justify themselves. And this is what's going on here at the end of chapter 11. So, we are reminded to not pursue merely the form of godliness denying its power.

I think also, think about these scribes. Why were they making these tombs so beautiful? All these prophets are so important. Obviously, they're the ones who are copying the scriptures. They're copying Jeremiah.

They're copying Ezekiel. They're copying Daniel. And so, they have an affinity for these prophets. And they're building these. And they probably totally felt bad about what their ancestors did to these prophets.

They're totally against it. That's why they're beautifying the tombs now. But trying to get the past right, trying to get the past right as holiness in the present. Are we tracking with this? Trying to get the past right as your holiness now in the present.

According to Jesus, just get you condemned. That didn't work. Look how sorry we are that our ancestors killed the prophets. Now we honor them. Now we adorn them. Jesus said, that's not holiness. That's not righteousness.

And then, it is okay to question the motives of questions and the questioners. If somebody is asking a bunch of questions and so on, it's okay to say, I wonder, why are you interested in that? Why are you interested in asking that question?

This is my phone. To ask the motive, to be aware of the motive, is to be Christ-like. To say, what's really going on here? What's the reason we're asking these questions? Okay. Any observations or rebuttals?

Jesus said, you testify your approval of the deeds of your fathers by building the tombs of the prophets. Now, why were they building the tombs of the prophets? Yes, exactly. Exactly. They were honoring the prophets whom their ancestors killed.

And now they're honoring them. And Jesus says, this only proves your connection to those who killed the prophets. In what way? Not out of the apparent information of their motive. Oh, I'm a big fan of Jeremiah.

It wasn't because that wasn't what Jesus was pointing at. He was pointing at the fact that the way they were going about trying to prove their righteousness was the same way that the ancestors did who killed the prophets who got confronted.

The prophets confronted the Jews of the past, the ancestors. The prophets confronted the ancestors by the Spirit of Christ in the same way that Christ himself was confronting the Jews of the present. For the same sins, for the same hypocrisy, for the same idolatry, for the same covenant breaking.

And neither one of them is responding in repentance. So Jesus was trying to say, you think you're different than your ancestors, but the way you're doing things now just shows you're totally in agreement with them.

Right, yeah, because if they had been different, they would have accepted Jesus or Jesus said, if you believe Moses, you would believe me. If you were not covenant breakers, you don't believe Moses, you're covenant breakers.

If you did believe Moses, you believe me.