Sermon Tone Analysis

! *Are the Pharisees still among us?*

/By Steve Cornell/

What do you think of when you hear the word Pharisee?

A self-righteous person?

A religious hypocrite?

To most people it conveys something negative.

The Pharisees are widely remembered as the main antagonists against Jesus.

Yet, in all fairness, they had a noble origin before the days of Jesus’ earthly life.

Originally, the Pharisees had great zeal for the things of God.

Believing that God’s people were punished in the Babylonian captivity for neglecting of God’s law and compromising with pagan culture, these men became zealots for the Law and extreme separatists from the world.

Their devotion to the Law was so intense that they established detailed oral traditions to hedge up the actual Law of God.

They did this to insure against any possible infringement of God’s Law.

The Jewish leaders during the time of Jesus were divided into various groups.

The New Testament primarily refers to the Pharisees and Sadducees.

It also mentions scribes and priests, the majority of whom were numbered among the Pharisees.

These religious groups were organized into distinct and closed communities, and were divided based on differing schools of interpretation of the Law.

The Pharisees influenced a large segment of society and were more accepted among the people than the Sadducees.

These men were the conservatives of the conservatives— the fundamentalists of the fundamentalists.

“All others might go liberal,” they thought, “but not us, we are the separated ones.”

Even during New Testament times, these men were distinguished by their religious devotion.

They would cross land and sea to make one convert!

They were committed to detailed tithing.

Although the Old Testament required one fast a year, they fasted twice a week.

Their ideas of Sabbath observance required far more than the intention of Scripture and the ability of man.

As an example of their Sabbath regulations, Jewish historian Alfred Edersheim writes:

“The Biblical Law forbade such labor (on the Sabbath) in simple terms (Exodus 36:6; comp.

Jeremiah 17:22).

But Rabbinism developed the prohibition into eight special ordinances, by first dividing ‘bearing of a burden’ into two separate acts - lifting it up and putting it down - and then arguing, that it might be lifted up or put down from two different places, from a public into a private into a public place.

Again, a ‘burden’ meant, as the lowest standard of it, the weight of ‘a dried fig.’

But if ‘half a fig’ were carried at two different times - lifted or deposited from a private into a public place, or vice versa - were these two actions to be combined into one so as to constitute the sin of Sabbath desecration?

The standard measure for forbidden food was the size of an olive, just as that for carrying burdens was the weight of a fig.

If a man had swallowed forbidden food of the size of half an olive, rejected it, and again eaten of the size of half an olive, he would be guilty because the palate had altogether tasted food to the size of a whole olive,” (The Life & Times of Jesus The Messiah, pp.

778-79).

We might laugh at these traditions and call them ridiculous, but they were neither funny nor ridiculous to the Pharisees.

Their traditions became measures of true godliness and instruments of condemnation.

The original concern of the Pharisees was to safeguard the people against the disobedience and worldliness that led to divine punishment in the Babylonian captivity.

By Jesus’ time, (though the same zeal existed), their intentions had become corrupt.

Their love for the Law was replaced with a love for the reputation gained by Law-keeping.

The Law itself (with the traditions) became a convenient vehicle for self-exaltation (Matthew 23:5-7).

Jesus said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts” (Luke 16:15).

He identified the Pharisees as those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt” (Luke 18:9).

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were so self-righteous they actually believed God and man owed them honor for their devotion to their traditions.

On one occasion, the Scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?”

Jesus responded, “And why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”

Jesus rebuked them saying, “you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, ‘In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men’ ” (Matthew 15:2-9).

Although there were some sincerely devout Pharisees (e.g.

Nicodemus, John 3;7:50; 19:39, Joseph of Arimathea, Mark 15:43; Luke 23:51), the NT picture of the Pharisees portrays them as unscrupulously judgmental, severely unmerciful, unkind and unforgiving.

Their evaluations of others were based on external appearances.

They heaped their traditions on the truth of Scripture and on the shoulders of people (see Matthew 23:4).

They were proud, self-exalting, self-righteous people who viewed others with contempt for not living up to their traditions.

The primary distinctive of Pharisees was the significance they attached to their traditions.

They elevated their laws to divine status, as coming from Moses himself.

To protect against any possible violation of the actual Law, the Pharisees built a hedge around it by establishing what they considered to be legitimate applications of that Law.

The problem came in their inability to differentiate between the command and the means used to safeguard against violating the command—- their applications.

Referring to the development of these traditions, D.A. Hagner writes:

“This material apparently began to evolve during the Babylonian Exile through the new circumstances thereby brought upon the Jewish people.

The Exile was seen as divine punishment for neglect of the law, and accordingly during this period there was an earnest turning to the law.

Detailed exposition of the law appeared in the form of innumerable and highly specific injunctions that were designed to ‘build a hedge’ around the written Torah and thus guard against any possible infringement of the Torah by ignorance or accident.

In addition, the new circumstances of the Exile and the post-exilic period involved matters not covered in the written Torah; consequently new legislation had to be produced by analogy to, and inference from, that which already existed.

“The content of this oral law continued to evolve and to grow in volume through the intertestamental, NT, and post-NT periods, finally to achieve written form in the Mishnah (AD 200).

This oral law is referred to in the gospels as, ‘the tradition of the elders,’ or ‘the traditions of men’ (Mt.

15:1-9, Mark 7:1-23; cf.

Jos Antiq X III.

xvi.

2).

The NT abounds with allusions to the scrupulous concern of the Pharisees with the minutia of their legalism: the tithing of herbs (Matt.

23:23; Luke 11:42); the wearing of conspicuous phylacteries and tassels (Matt.

23:5); the careful observance of ritual purity (e.g., Mark 7:1ff); frequent fastings (Matt.

9:14); distinctions in oaths (23:16ff), etc., and extremely detailed Sabbath law.

The Mishnah offers even more striking illustration of this precise definition of the law.

Here is a virtual encyclopedia of Pharisaic legalism that instructs the reader with almost incredible detail concerning every conceivable area of conduct” (Zondervan Pictorial Bible Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 748).

Tragically, the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were so blinded by their traditions that they rejected the Messiah himself.

They did not have a category for Jesus.

He healed people on the Sabbath and actually commanded one man to take up his pallet and walk.

“Therefore the Jews were saying to him who was cured, ‘It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.’

But he answered them, ‘He who made me well was the One who said to me, Take up your pallet and walk.’

And for this reason, the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath” (John 5:10-16).

On occasions, Jesus tried to correct the error of the Pharisees but they refused to hear Him.

They were convinced He violated their traditions which to them was equivalent to disobedience to God.

Therefore, they concluded that Jesus had to be an evil man.

Because of their proud hearts, they wouldn’t consider seeing themselves as wrong.

In spite of the evident miracles and works of God visible in Jesus (confirming His identity as their Messiah), they rejected Him.

They couldn’t comprehend how Jesus could eat with sinners, sit with sinners, let a sinful woman wash His feet and also be a prophet of God.

“No truly righteous man,” they reasoned, “could do these things; He must be a sinner.”

The extent of their blindness was so serious that when they tried to kill Jesus.

Finally, they had Him put to death and actually thought they were serving God.

Ultimately their traditions promoted disobedience and shut men out of the kingdom.

*Who are the Pharisees today?*

It is vital for believers today to take a close look at the type of judging Jesus condemned.

When Jesus said, “judge not” he had a specific kind of judging in mind.

It was hypocritical judgment based, not on the actual commands of God, but on man-made traditions added to God’s Word.

Sadly, this type of judgmental attitude can still be found among Christians.

It was addressed in the early church (specifically in Romans 14), and one might argue was anticipated by Jesus in Matthew 7:1-5.

The judgmental attitude Jesus condemns manifests itself whenever a believer, church, or institution establishes a conviction on something that is not specifically addressed in Scripture and uses that conviction (which is really a preference), to measure the spirituality of others.

On matters not specifically addressed in Scripture, equally sincere believers have to come to different conclusions concerning right and wrong.

But Christians have not always responded to their differences with maturity and grace.

Author Garry Friesen lists areas of difference he has observed among Christians.

Consider his list with a few of my own additions.

Remember, these are issues which are not specifically addressed in scripture.Attending movies Wearing two-piece swim suits (women) Watching television Mixed swimming Working for pay on Sunday

Playing pool

Mowing the lawn on Sunday