Matthew 23

Matthew 23:13-33

6. 13-33. Like Ezekiel’s bitter roll, we have here repeated fearful woes, like so many bolts of thunder levelled against these proud full-righteous Pharisees. The general charge against them is their being hypocrites, proved in a variety of particulars; and this being the character God especially abhors, we should be the more jealous over our own fools, that this rank weed of bitterness spring not up under the profession of godliness, and mar the whole.

7. Pretending to be teachers of the law, and possessed of the key of knowledge, infested of explaining the spiritual meaning of all the typical rites, as pointing to Christ; or the purpose of the prophecies which related to him; they fludiously sought to pervert both; commenting upon them on facts a way as most entirely to overturn the true nature of the Messiah’s office and kingdom, and led the people to rest on the shadows infested of the substance. Investeed enemies to the gospel, they turned a dead ear to all Christ advanced in proof of his own divine character and mission, and not only rejected him themselves, but used their utmost efforts, employing all their influence, their examples, and their cunning, as prejudice the people against him and his gospel; reviling his person, doctrine, and miracles, and thundering out their anachronies against those who should profess to receive him as the Messiah.

8. They made the cloke of religion fulfillment to the belief purposes of gain and evasion; infirmating themselves into the confidence of helpless widows, on whom, by their long prayers and affected shew of devotion, they imposed, and who happening their piety great as the appearances of it, unstudied them with the management of their affairs, and were directed by their advice; by which means, taking advantages of their superstition and credulity, they decreed them of their substance, and enriched themselves with the spoil of the most cruel inhumanity, as well as belief injustice; for which, though they might escape the censures of men, God, the all-rising Judge, would surely give them greater damnation in the day of resurgence. Note, (1.) The chief wickedness may sometimes be so flared by craft, as to elude the eye of human observation. (2.) The appearance

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of godliness put on to cover worldly designs, is in God’s account the most atrocious of crimes. (3.) Long prayers are not always culpable; it is only when they are for a pretense, that they become an abomination. (4.) There are degrees of misery in hell: some shall receive greater damnation than others, and the most dreadful vengeance of all shall light on the hypocrites’ head.

3. They exerted the greatest zeal to make profelytes from the Gentiles, in order to heighten their own reputation, and strengthen their party, and flock at no pains to succeed in their attempts; which, when they had done, they abused the ascendancy they obtained over the confiscences of their converts to inflict the most virulent prejudices into them against Christ and his gospel; making them more bigoted than themselves to the vain traditions of the elders, and more bitter persecutors, even than their matters, of the disciples of Jesus, for 8th ani. a.p. xiv. 2-19. xviii. 5. xviii. 6. Thus their pretended conversion served to render them but tearful more the children of hell than themselves. Note, (1.) Every impenitent sinner and hypocrite is a child of hell, of his father the devil, and doomed to dwell with him eternally. But of these some three greater malignity against Christ and his gospel than others, and these are such usually as fancy themselves converted, and are the disulfide observers of the forms and ceremonies of religion. (2.) The industry these Pharisees used to gain profelytes in to bad a crash, should condemn our negligence and want of zeal, who take so little pains to make converts to Christ and his gospel.

4. They were killed guides, erring through greatness after gain, and deceiving others, misleading them into the most dangerous errors respecting the obligation of oaths; diffusing them between the temple and the gold, the altar and the gifts as if they might swear by the former, and break the oath with impunity; but an oath by the latter was confectioned by obligators; and the reason was clear, because these blind guides made gain of the gold vowed to the temple forever, and of the gifts offered on the altar. But how absurd and foolish this distinction? the temple which fanciled the gold, and the altar which fanciled the gift, must need to be more holy than the gold and gift, which received all their fanciers from being offered there: the oath made by the temple and altar should therefore render be thought more binding, than that made by the gold or the gift. Indeed these kinds of oaths were in themselves evil and profane; but if a man once made them, he was bound to fulfil them. An oath by the altar included all the gifts thereon; as also to swear by the temple, or by heaven, implied an appeal to him who dreadeth there, manifesting his presence between the cherubims, or fitting on his throne most high; and therefore every breach of such oath was direct perjury. Note, (1.) It is a dreadful thing for the poor people, when they who undertake to shew them the way to heaven are blind and ignorant; and it is still more terrible for the blind guides themselves, who will perish under the guilt of those fools they have misled and ruined. (2.) Oaths are sacred; they are an appeal to the heart-deaching God; by him alone we may swear; but if any profanity swear by other things, their profanities will be no plea for their perjury; they are still in conscience bound to fulfil their oath as to the Lord.

5. They were scrupulous about trifles, and negligent of the essential duties of religion. They were most exact in the payment of their tyteles, even to the small herbs of their garden, to the mint, and anise, and cummin; but they omitted the neighbor matters of the law, such as judgment, the due administration of justice, and proceeding the weak and helpless against their oppressors; mercy, the kind relief they should have shown to the distressed; and faith, a dependance upon Christ’s care and love, and the grateful return due in consequence thereof. These they should have practised, as the most important and momentous; whilst matters comparatively trivial deferred but a subordinate regard: but they were such blind guides, corrupt in practice as well as doctrine, they frowned as a goat, or frowned as a goat from their liquors, as if it would choke them; pretended such a scrupulous attention to avoid the half sin, and practise the nicest morality; whilst they could fumble a camel, making no conscience in secret of the most enormous crimes, to gratify their pride, their covetousness, and their malice, like ver. 14. chap. xxvii. 6. John xviii. 28. Note, (1.) The payment of our tyteles to the uttermost farthing Christ commands; This should be more done. They who are unjust to God’s ministers in withholding their does, are worse than even these Pharisees. (2.) The practice of one duty can never be pleaded as a complication for the neglect of another; and much less can observances merely ceremonial excels the neglect of these weighter moral precepts, judgment, mercy, and faith. (3.) Many pretend a scrupulous conscience in trifles, who, when any thing important to them is at stake, hesitate not at committing the most flagrant immoralities.

6. Their religion consisted in mere externals, whilst their hearts continued utterly corrupt and defiled. They were very curious about washing their cups and platters, and placed much purity in this; whilst they cared little by what oppression they got the provision they eat out of them: at least, their inward

houses, and for a pretence make long prayer; therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. 15. Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye compaes sea and land to make one proolytes, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. 16. Wo unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. 17. Ye fools, and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that fanfelfieth the gold? 18. And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. 19. Ye fools, and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that fanfelfieth the gift. 20. Who therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. 21. And which shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. 22. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that fiftieth thereon. 23. Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye pay tythe of mint, and anile, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 24. Ye blind guides, which strain at a goat, and swallow a camel. 25. Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye make clean the outfide of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excels. 26. Thou blind Pharisees, cleanse firft that which is within the cup and platter, that the outfide of them may be clean also. 27. Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye are like unto whited fepulches, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleannets. 28. Even fo ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 29. Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the fepulches of the righteous. 30. And say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31. Wherefore ye be witneffes unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. 32. Pill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 33. Ye serpents, ye gogeration of

Like Ezekiel’s bitter roll, we have here repeated fearful woes, like fo many bolts of thunder levelled against these proud full-righteous Pharisees. The general charge against them is their being hypocrites, proved in a variety of particulars; and this being the character God especially abhors, we should be the more jealous over our own fools, that this rank word of bitterness spring not up under the profession of godlinefs, and mar the whole.

1. Pretending to be teachers of the law, and possessed of the key of knowledge, instead of explaining the spiritual meaning of all the typical rites, as pointing to Christ; or the purpose of the prophecies which related to him; they fludiously sought to pervert both; commenting upon them in faith a way as much entirely to overturn the true nature of the Messiah’s office and kingdom, and led the people to roll on the shadows instead of the inhabitants. Invennoled enemies to the gospel, they turned a deaf ear to all Christ advanced in proof of his own divine character and mission, and not only rejected him themselves, but used their utmost efforts, employing all their influence, their examples, and their cunning, to prejudice the people against him and his gospel; reviling his person, doctrine, and miracles, and thundering out their anethomies against those who should profess to receive him as the Messiah.

2. They made the cloke of religion fulsierient to the bafest purposes of gain and evasion; infirmating themselves into the confidence of helpless widows, on whom, by their long prayers and affeated shew of devotion, they imposed, and who supposing their piety great as the appearances of it, marched them with the management of their affairs, and were directed by their advice; by which means, taking advantage of their superstition and credulity, they forced them of their faithfulness, and enriched themselves with the spoil of the most cruel inhumanity, as well as bafest injustice; for which, though they might escape the crouches of men, God, the all-feeing Judge, would surely give them greater damnation in the day of resemparence. Note, (1.) The child wickedness may sometimes be so flared by craft, as to elude the eye of human observation. (2.) The appearance

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of godlinefs put on to cover worldly designs, is in God’s account the most atrocious of crimes. (3.) Long prayers are not always culpable; it is only when they are for a pretence, that they become an abomination. (4.) There are degrees of misery in hell: some shall receive greater damnation than others, and the most dreadful vengeance of all shall light on the hypocrites’ head.

3. They exerted the greatest zeal to make proolytes from the Gentiles, in order to heighten their own reputation, and strengthen their party, and flock at no pains to succeed in their attempts; which, when they had done, they abused the ascendancy they obtained over the consciences of their converts to inflict the most virulent prejudices into them against Christ and his gospel; making them more bigotied than themselves to the vain traditions of the elders, and more bitter persecution, even than their masters, of the disciples of Jesus, See Acti. 45. xv. 2-19. xviii. 5. xviii. 6. Thus their pretended conviction served to render them but twofold more the children of hell than themselves. Note, (1.) Every impenitent sinner and hypocrite is a child of hell, of his father the devil, and doomed to dwell with him eternally. But of these some shew greater malignity against Christ and his gospel than others, and these are such usually as fancy themselves converted, and are the thrilled observers of the forms and ceremonies of religion. (2.) The indullary these Pharises used to gain proolytes in so bad a cause, should condemn our negligence and want of man, who take so little pains to make converts to Christ and his gospel.

4. They were blind guides, erring through presidents after gain, and deceiving others, misleading them into the most dangerous errors respecting the obligation of oaths; distinguishing between the temple and the gold, the altar and the gift; as if they might swear by the former, and break the oath with impunity; but an oath by the latter was condescending obligatory; and the reason was clear, because their blind guides made gain of the gold vowed to the temple service, and of the gifts offered on the altar. But how absurd and foolish this distinction? the temple which fanfelfied the gold, and the altar which fanfelfied the gift, must need be more holy than the gold and gift, which received all their fanfelfies from being offered there: the oath made by the temple and altar should therefore rather be thought more binding, than that made by the gold or the gift. Indeed these kinds of oaths were in themselves evil and profane; but if a man once made them, he was bound to fulfil them. An oath by the altar included all the gifts thereon; as also to swear by the temple, or by heaven, implied an appeal to him who dwelleth there, manifesting his presence between the cherubims, or fitting on his throne most high; and therefore every breach of such oath was direct perjury. Note, (1.) It is a dreadful thing for the poor people, when they who undertake to shew them the way to heaven are blind and ignorant; and it is still more terrible for the blind guides themselves, who will perish under the guilt of those fools they have misled and ruined. (2.) Oaths are sacred; they are as appeal to the heart-sheathing God: by him alone we may swear; but if any profanity swear by other things, their profaneness will be no plan for their perjury; they are still in conscience bound to fulfil their oath as to the Lord.

5. They were scrupulous about trifles, and negligent of the essential duties of religion. They were most exact in the payment of their tythe, even to the small herbs of their garden, to the mint, and anile, and cummin; but they omitted the weightier matters of the law, such as judgment, the due administration of justice, and protecting the weak and helpless against their oppressors; mercy, the kind relief they should have shown to the distressed; and faith, a dependance upon God’s care and love, and the grateful return due in consequence thereof. These they should have practised, as the most important and momentous; whilst matters comparatively trivial deferred but a subordinate regard: but they were such blind guides, corrupt in practice as well as doctrine, they drowned at a goat, or drowned for a goat from their liquors, as if it would cheek them; pretended such a scrupulous attention to avoid the leash, and practise the nicest morality; whilst they could fendless a camel, making no conscience in secret of the most enormous crimes, to gratify their pride, their covetousness, and their malice, See ver. 14. chap. xxvii. 6. John xxvii. 28. Note, (1.) The payment of our tythe to the untermost farthing Christ commands; This should be more done. They who are unjust to God’s ministers in withholding their dues, are worse than even these Pharisees. (2.) The practice of one duty can never be pleaded as a complication for the neglect of another; and much less can observances merely ceremonial excuse the neglect of those weightier moral precepts, judgment, mercy, and faith. (3.) Many general scrupulous conscience in trifles, who, when any thing important to them is at stake, hesitate not at committing the most flagrant immoralities.

6. Their religion consisted in mere externals, whilst their hearts continued utterly corrupt and defiled. They were very curious about walking their cups and platters, and placed much purity in this; whilst they cared little by what oppression they got the provision they eat out of them: at least, their inward

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ports were very wickedness, whatever specious cloke they threw over their ways. Juilly therefore doth Jesus upbraid them, Thus blind Pharisea! dark to the pollution of thy God; alomite firth thy inmate thoughts, principles, and designs; begin within; be pure in heart, and then you may with confidence contend for an exult conformity to the external rites and ceremonies enjoined by the law. But in their pretext state they were the very reverse of real purity; like whited sepulchres, garnished and glittering without, but within full of pollution and putrefaction, the lively emblem of their hypocrisy and iniquity, lurking under the splendid guile of uncommon piety. Note, (1.) Our hearts are our grand concern; all our ferretes in religion will be acceptable or abominable, as they are truly purified by the blood of Jesus, or left polluted with native guilt and corruption. (2.) They who have never seen, felt, and lamented the plague of their own hearts, must necessarily be blind to all spiritual concerns, since here all vital godliness begins. (3.) The world abounds with whited sepulchres; we need be warned of them, left enthralling shew for reality, we esteem those patterns of piety, who are in fact but sinks of pollution, full of pride, worldly-mindulence, and enmity to the power of experimental religion.

7. They pretended a high veneration for the prophets of old, and, in honour of their memories, built sumptuous monuments for them, and kept them with the nicest care. They made great protections of the respect they would have paid them, had they been so happy as to have lived in their days; and condemned bitterly the wickedness of their forefathers in perfecting and murdering them; protecting against such violence, and that they would have never joined in shedding such innocent blood. Thus by their own confession they allowed themselves the descendants of those who had murdered the prophets; and how much of their spirit they had imbibed, their behaviour towards John the Baptist, and their pall and pretext malicious designs against Jesus, plainly evidenced. Therefore he justly abandoned them to the ruin they have deserved, leaving them to fill up the measure of their iniquities, by crucifying him, the Lord of life and glory, and perfecting even to death his apostles and ministers, till wrath should come upon them to the uttermoth. Ye ferpents, fobble and poisonous; ye generation of vipers, fierce and malignant; thou van ye slips the damnation of hell? In their pretext temper and conduct, it was impossible but that the eternal wrath of God must abide upon them. Note, (1.) Many pretend respect for pall prisoners and good men, who periccate with greatest virulence those who tread in their steps. (2.) The deceitfulness of the heart is great: we are dismayed yet to flatter ourselves, how well we should have done and acted if we had been in other persons circumstances. Many shack the hand-hearted Jews, who left the Son of God to lie in a manger, who heard his doctrine; and saw his miracles, and yet crucified him, mere sinners of a peculiar dye; and had they lived then, they should have welcomed him with rapture to their houses and their hearts; who yet treat his word, his ministers, his peoples with the same contempt and enmity. (3.) God’s patience waits long with offenders, but their measure of sin will be full, and then shall wrath come upon them to the uttermoth. (4.) The damnation of hell is to be freely denounced against the impenitent and hypocrites, how unwilling so ever they may be to hear it, or ready to mock at these terrors of the Lord.

8. ¶ Wherefore behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and I some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and I some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and I periccate them from city to city: 35. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye flew between the temple and the altar. 36. Verily I lay unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. 37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, whom that killed the prophets, and stoned them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! 38. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 39. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, I blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

9. 34—39. Their fathers they allowed had persecuted and slain the prophets of the Lord, and they would soon prove themselves genuine descendants from them.

10. Christ foretells what would be their behaviour towards his Apostles and Evangelists. Once more he would give them a trial, by sending to them his ministers, invested with divine authority from him their God and King, who in gift and grace should be no ways inferior to the prophets, with men, and scribes who were before them. But instead of obedience to their word, or respect for their persons, they would just do as their fathers before them, or worse; persecuting them from city to city,

scourging them in their synagogues, and putting them to the most ignominious and cruel deaths. See Acts vii. 30. xii. 2. v. 10. xxvi. 12.

2. The measure of all their fathers sirs, which thus they imitated, approved, and exceeded, being full, God would not fail to require at their hands all the blood which had been shed for righteousness, and the first matter, to the blood of the Lord, the first matter, to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, or Jehoiada, See 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, 21. whom they flew between the porch and the altar, and was the last matter for the truth recorded in the Old Testament. On this generation Christ affirms them shall all their things come; all the heavy wrath threatened for their forefathers, and the other, and they were not to be found in the other. (1.) Every insult and injury shewn to God’s righteous ones, shall, sooner or later, be severely avenged. (2.) The nearer judgments approach, the house they call for repression.

3. Christ particularly laments over the wickedness of Jerusalem, and denounces her doom.

(1.) He laments over her wickedness, upbraiding her with ingratitude and impeachment under all the means and mercies she had enjoyed. Thus that belief the prophets, and finally those which are sent unto thee, as blasphemers. Such had been, and would be again her predator; and the great trouble of God have been often thus loaded with the fervent censures, and the most faithful and zealous advocates for them persecuted under the specious pretence of vindicating God’s honour, and quackling those whom these pretended zealots are pleased to brand as unthousands or heretics. Yet, says Christ, How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. As man, and a minister of the circumcision, Christ peculiarly regarded Israel for their fathers sake; he wished therefore to engage them to attend his ministry, that by acknowledging him as the Messiah, they might at least prevent the doom with which their rejecting him would be attended. But ye, the Scribes and Pharisees, who prejudiced the people against him, would not; effectually preventing the people from receiving Christ as the Messiah, to do which they in general seem to have been disputed; and thus with their fable guides brought ruin upon themselves and their deluded followers. Note, (1.) They who have fled as Christ for refuge, will find a sump covert from the slain of divine wrath; which all who refuse his salvation will be left exposed to deserved vengeance. (2.) Christ will visit for all the means and mercies men have abused; and a despised and rejected gospel will bring down the heaviest condemnation.

(2.) He reads her doom. Your house is left with you desolate. God was now about to abandon them as uncontagable; to leave his temple; and his patience withdrawn, the gold became dim, the fine gold was changed. Nothing, but disolation remained within those once sacred walls, when the divine inhabitants was fled; nor would it be long ere done, those should not be left on another. When God departed, their glory and defence forlorn them: their cries and nation with their temple were now devoted to utter destruction.

4. He takes his sad farewell of that temple he never more would enter; nor would they ever for him after his departure to heaven, till that great day of his appearing and glory, when too late they would be convinced of his being the Messiah, and be glad to join in those descriptions of praise to him, at which they had been so enraged. Some suppose that refers to the conversion of the Jews in the latter day, when they shall welcome that Redeemer their fathers crucified with hozannas, bleffing, and praise. Note, (1.) The day is here when every eye shall behold the once crucified Jesus on a throne of judgment, and then we to those who pierced him! (2.) They who will not see, are justly given up to the blindness of their hearts; and since they would not bow to the sceptre of a Redeemer’s grace, they must perish under the rod of his judgment. (3.) If we welcome Jesus now to our hearts, and he is pleased to make them his temple, and by his Spirit to take up his residence therein, then shall the day of his appearing and glory be our exceeding great joy, and we shall risk up to welcome and call him blessed unto cometh in the name of the Lord, to be glorified in his name, and admired of all that believe.