Woe to Lawyers
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Recap: dead works
External washing vs. Internal generosity
Careful tithing vs. justice and love of God
Recognition vs. facade
Big Idea: Works bring only judgment to those who are spiritually dead
Now Jesus turns from the Pharisees and the woes on them to the lawyers (those who claimed to know the law of God and strictly held it over the people, but did not keep it so well themselves.
While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table.
The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.
And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?
But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”
One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”
And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people 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 whom your fathers killed.
So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.
Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’
so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.
Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things,
lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
Big Idea: It is possible to be an expert yet ignorant
Big Idea: It is possible to be an expert yet ignorant
Jesus tells the lawyers:
You do nothing to help people carry the load you put on them
You carry the guilt of prophet murder
You missed the point and block others from the truth
One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”
What is he referring to? Jesus had just passed judgment on the scribes and Pharisees, but the lawyers felt implicated along with them. Jesus is about to confirm that they are guilty as well.
And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
They made the rules of God to be a burden rather than a gift
Yes, rules (commandments, guides for living from God himself) are a gift
To live by God’s rules is life and peace.
His rules reflect his holiness, so that we will have proper respect towards Him
His rules also reflect his love, because his rules keep us in His will, and in His will we are safe, at peace, and full of joy.
They imposed these rules, but they did nothing to help the people to live them out.
They commanded rather than instructed
Example: A Drill Instructor
A good drill instructor instructs in order that the recruits can follow his commands. His commands are never anything he has not given instruction on.
A bad drill instructor shouts and rages, and tells the recruits what they must do, but has never taught them how to do it, or demonstrated it to them.
boot camp was show and tell. Everything I learned there I was an eye witness to, because the Drill Instructor gave instructions. He gave verbal explanation, in some cases we had written instructions, and he gave a demonstration of how to do the thing he was teaching.
Example a coach who tells his players to run a play that he has never taught them. There may be players that are willing to do whatever the coach asks, but they are unable because they have never been taught the skills or the plan. How could they execute on something they are not equipped to do?
The lawyers demanded the people obey their laws, but they never showed them how to.
They didn’t instruct on how, they didn’t offer assistance, they didn’t give gentle encouragement.
If you have ever worked for a boss like this, you can understand. With no training, they expect you to know what to do when they issue the command.
Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed.
Was it bad for them to build tombs? Not in and of itself. But by building the tombs, they were making sure those prophets stayed dead. In other words, they were honoring them superficially, but in reality, their ancestors had been the ones to kill them, and they did not honor them in obedience to the words of God those prophets spoke, but only made a show of making tombs for them.
Example: If there were a monument to a founding Father, but no one recognized any of their virtues.
So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.
If your father murdered someone, you would not be applauded for paying for the funeral. Rather, this is an admission of guilt carried by the family of the murderer.
Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’
so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.
It was the case for many of God’s chosen prophets, that they were rejected and sometimes killed or harassed.
Matthew Henry pointed out that they are being reproved by Jesus here because they are pretending to venerate or honor the prophets whom their fathers killed, when they themselves hated and persecuted those in their own day who were sent to them on the same errand, to call them to repentance, and direct them to Christ.
In other words, it was bad enough that previous generations had killed the prophets, but this generation had Christ himself, and they were going to kill him, and harass, persecute, and kill his followers if they got the chance.
But now Jesus is about to give them what is, in my mind, the most serious of these three woes:
Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
In this woe, Jesus is giving a strong warning to those who are in a position to do good by teaching, but they instead hold people back from knowing God. They claim to be the experts, and they say the people are unable to know the law on their own, so they must guard the law for them
Examples in church history:
You need to have a degree and know Greek and Hebrew to truly understand the bible.
The Bible in Latin
The Bible inaccessible (Wycliff, Tyndale, Luther, others risked their lives and the wrath of the church to make the Bible accessible)
Another way they keep the bible inaccessible is by focusing on the wrong things. They major in the minors.
Entire ministries dedicated to one aspect of the Bible, rather than trying to teach the full counsel of God, as Paul said he did
Healing
End Times
Israel
Social Justice
It isn’t that any of these are not valid topics for study, but when they become the entire focus it becomes obsessive and dangerous.
The Bible is kept inaccessible by those who deny the need to study it by the people.
Mystical experiences are more important to them
feelings over thinking
They tend to put their own impressions over the written word.
Parents can be guilty of making it inaccessible as well.
Not teaching at home
not engaging with a local church
Children learn the priorities by observing
So we should not see these warnings of Jesus as applying only to the people at that time. We should examine ourselves and see whether we are not among those who Jesus may have passed woes to.
However, these woes could be taken as a loving warning.
It is the wisdom of those who desire to have their sin mortified to make a good use of reproaches that come from ill will, and to turn them into reproofs. If we can in this way hear of our faults, and amend them, it is well: but it is the folly of those who are wedded to their sins, and resolved not to part with them, to make an ill use of the faithful and friendly admonitions given them, which come from love, and to have their passions provoked by them as if they were intended for reproaches, and therefore fly in the face of their reprovers, and justify themselves in rejecting the reproof. Thus the prophet complained (
In other words, we may get good reproofs or bad. Someone may say something to us we don’t like. They may say it in a judgmental way. But we ought to consider it anyway. As Jesus gave these woes, it was one more opportunity for the Pharisees and Lawyers to consider the charges against them, whether they were true or not, and whether some change of course was necessary to live a life of godliness. And so it should be for us, when we are challenged, that we should consider the charges against us. We also consider the source of the charge…
As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things,
lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
There is danger in too much or too little interest in knowing God better through his word. On one side are those who know the text so well, but are more interested in finding trivia or arguing points that they never allow that Word to impact them personally, and for their good.
On the other side are those who say they don’t need to know the scripture, because they interact with God in other ways.
We need to be those who love God and His word, who allow his warnings to sink in for our good, who allow the encouragements of scripture to spur us on, and who share the Word with others. We must not ignore our responsibility to continually learn from God through His Word, and we must not stray into disinterest in His Word
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Here God’s Word is described. We are told what it does. And what it does needs to be applied personally. It is all too easy to read about the Pharisees and Lawyers and think about how they missed applying the Word. It is easy to see many modern preachers and find their faults and judge them, even some who are under judgment. But we must remember that these adjectives and verbs in Hebrews four 12 are things the Word should do to us, personally! So as I conclude, let us each examine our own selves, in light of the word of God:
Living (not dead, dying, or sick)
Is it living in you?
Active (Not sedentary, lazy, or retired)
Is it active in you?
Sharper (not dull or blunt)
Is it sharp to you?
Piercing (It has a strong effect)
Does God’s Word still poke you when you need poking?
Discerning (Wisdom to know good from bad)
Does the Word get through your hidden thoughts?
