Then Jesus launches into the three woes on the
Pharisees:
1. THE FIRST WOE: LEGALISM MAJORS ON
MINORS AND MINORS ON MAJORS (11:42).
The Pharisees were
meticulous about giving a tenth to God to the degree that they even tithed
their spices! (Rue is a strong-scented herb.) While Jesus upheld the obligation
of tithing (Lev. 27:30 was
used to support the tithing of spices), He condemned them for neglecting the
weighty part of the Law, namely, justice and the love of God. As He elsewhere
affirmed, the love of God and the love of neighbor sum up the entire Law (Matt. 22:37-40). But the Pharisees would
cleverly tell even their parents that they could not help them financially
because their money had been devoted to God (Mark
7:11). Technically, they were tithing, but practically, they were
neglecting to love their own parents!
Modern day legalists also major on the minors
and minor on the majors. Some churches and Christian parents put major
attention on rules about petty issues, such as dress codes or certain
activities, but they tolerate serious sins, such as gossip, greed, and pride.
If we shun people because of how they look, or over certain behaviors that,
according to the Bible, are not major, we are guilty of the sin of the
Pharisees.
For example, you may be surprised to know what
Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, G. Campbell Morgan, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and
C. S. Lewis all had in common. Yes, they were all godly Christian leaders who
were greatly used by God. All except Lewis were gifted Bible expositors and
pastors. But also, at least some of the time they were in the ministry, they
all smoked!
Many Christians question your salvation if you
smoke! I think that if you smoke, you should quit as soon as possible, because
it is not good stewardship of your body. The men I just mentioned all lived
before that medical evidence was known. But my point is that there are many
Christians who are more concerned with getting people to stop smoking than with
getting them to walk in the Spirit and stop doing the deeds of the flesh.
2. THE SECOND WOE: LEGALISM FOCUSES ON
SELF-GLORY (11:43).
Jesus next condemns the Pharisees because they
loved the front seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the
market places. They loved to have people notice how important they were! It
made them feel good to be addressed as the Reverend Doctor So-and-so. But pride
was at the root of it. They were focused on their own glory, not on God’s
glory. Pride is at the heart of legalism; humility is at the heart of true Christianity.
The legalist can take pride in himself and his
attainments because he is looking at outward matters, not at issues of the
heart. He doesn’t acknowledge that his heart is just as sinful as the heart of
the prostitute or robber. If he had been reared in their circumstances or had
encountered the problems in life they had faced, he would have engaged in the
same behavior, because he had the same heart of lust and greed. No, he sees
himself as a notch above these sinners. He has attained a righteous life by his
own hard work and discipline. The legalist is puffed up with pride.
Scripture declares that God
opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (Prov. 3:34; James
4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5). One
sure mark of the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts is that we see ourselves as
terrible sinners in the sight of God. We see that we deserve His judgment
because of our pride, selfishness, and rebellion. Rather than comparing
ourselves with others and concluding that we are basically good, we compare
ourselves with God and conclude that no good thing dwells within us. Thus
convicted of our great need, we flee to the cross for mercy. But legalists
don’t like the message of the cross, because it confronts their pride.
3. THE THIRD WOE: LEGALISM SUBTLY
CORRUPTS OTHERS (11:44).
Jesus compares the
Pharisees to concealed tombs. If a Jew came in contact with a tomb or a dead
body, he was ceremonially unclean for seven days (Num. 19:11-22). The picture behind these
ceremonial laws was that sin leads to death and that the contamination of sin
and death spreads to others if it is not dealt with. The Jew who became
contaminated by contact with a dead body had to take responsibility for
cleansing through the ashes of a red heifer and ritual washing (Num. 19:1-11). Here, Jesus accuses the Pharisees, who were
meticulous about such laws of cleanliness, of defiling the Jewish nation
through their own spiritual death! The charge must have shocked them!
The application is that the sin of legalism
contaminates unsuspecting people. It turns off unbelievers and keeps them from
the truth of the gospel, because they can see the hypocrisy of the legalists.
It contaminates young believers, who are mistakenly taught that if they do
certain things and do not do other things, they will grow in holiness and be
pleasing to God. But invariably, the things that they are told to do and not do
are not the important issues of the Bible, such as the love of God and neighbor
(as summed up in the Ten Commandments). Rather, they are petty things, often
things that Scripture does not directly command.
One reason many kids who
grow up in Christian homes later reject the faith is that the parents and the
church have been shot through with legalism. Instead of the joy of knowing God
and of having our sins forgiven through His grace, the focus was on the rules
and the outward conformity that had to be maintained so that everyone else
would think that the kids (and parents) were good Christians. I’m not saying
that Christian homes should not have any rules. But the emphasis in our homes
and church should be on the joy of knowing God. As Paul says, “the kingdom of
God is … righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17).
At this point, an expert in the Jewish Law who
was at the dinner spoke up. Probably he thought that this young rabbi did not
grasp the full implication of His words. He was not only indicting the
Pharisees; His scathing words also insulted the lawyers and the entire Jewish
religious leadership. But rather than apologizing or backing down, Jesus laid
into the lawyers with three more woes:
4. THE FOURTH WOE: LEGALISM BURDENS
PEOPLE WITH PERIPHERAL COMMANDMENTS (11:46).
The lawyers had taken the commands of Scripture
and had multiplied them into hundreds of minute adaptations. But, like lawyers
in every age, they had also come up with legal loopholes that enabled them to
skirt around their own rules, while the average guy was still burdened with
them. For example, on the Sabbath the lawyers determined that you could only
travel 1,000 yards from your home. But if a rope was tied across the end of the
street, the end of the street became his residence and he could go 1,000 yards
beyond that. Or, if before the Sabbath a man left at any given point enough
food for two meals, that point technically became his residence and he could go
1,000 yards beyond that.
On the Sabbath, you
couldn’t tie a knot, because that was work. But a woman could tie a knot in her
girdle. So if you needed to draw water out of the well on the Sabbath, you
couldn’t tie a rope to the bucket, but you could tie a woman’s girdle to the
bucket! (These examples are in William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke [Westminster
Press], p. 158.)
The Sabbath laws were given for our benefit, so
that we would set aside one day in seven for worship and rest. I believe that
modern Christians err by throwing out the entire Sabbath principle. Most
Christians treat Sunday just like every other day. But some err by coming up
with specific lists of what you can and cannot do on the Lord’s Day. The main
issue is our heart before God. We are to honor Him one day each week by ceasing
from our normal routine and worshiping Him.
Legalism burdens people
with peripheral issues and rules. Biblical holiness frees people by pointing
them to the beauty of God’s holiness and love. As 1 John 5:3 states, “This is the love of God, that we
keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” When we obey
out of a heart of love for God, even though it is not always easy, it will
always result in great joy and blessing.
To summarize, Jesus is elaborating on the theme
that legalism puts the emphasis on the external to the neglect of the internal.
He has shown that it majors on minors, it focuses on self-glory, it subtly
corrupts others, and it burdens people with peripheral rules.
5. THE FIFTH WOE: LEGALISM DODGES THE
PERSONAL APPLICATION OF GOD’S HOLINESS, BUT PRETENDS OUTWARDLY TO HONOR IT
(11:47-51).
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day did not
submit their lives personally to the message of the Old Testament prophets, but
they built monuments to them to make it look as if they honored them. But Jesus
lumps the current leaders with their ancestors who killed the prophets. He is
saying that the current leaders are finishing off the job that the earlier
generations started. As in all the other woes, the underlying problem is that
though outwardly they act as if they honor the prophets, inwardly they do not
repent of the very sins which the prophets condemned.
When Jesus refers to the
wisdom of God (11:49), He is not quoting any specific Scripture, but rather is
summarizing and personifying all of God’s wisdom as revealed through the
prophets. Abel was the first man to die because his righteousness convicted his
brother of his evil deeds. In the arrangement of the books in the Hebrew Bible,
Zechariah was the last prophet to be killed (2
Chron. 24:20-25). Jesus is saying that the blood of all the righteous men who
were martyred in the Old Testament would be charged against this current wicked
generation, because they rejected God’s revealed wisdom about their sin. This
may point to the awful judgment on Jerusalem in A.D. 70 or it may also include
the final judgment. The point is, legalists don’t apply God’s holiness to their
hearts; they just put on an outward show of honoring it.
6. THE SIXTH WOE: LEGALISM MISSES THE
TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND MISLEADS THOSE WHO SEEK TO KNOW HIM (11:52).
The key of knowledge refers
to the personal knowledge of the living God through His revealed Word. As Jesus
said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). True
religion is a matter of knowing God personally and growing in that relationship
with Him. Legalism is a matter of going through rituals and of keeping rules,
but it’s devoid of the personal knowledge of God.
In many well-meaning but legalistic Christian
homes, parents mistakenly think that the way to keep their teenagers in line is
to lay down and enforce a lot of rules. But the way to keep your teenagers in
line is to lead them to a personal knowledge of the Holy One. He’s with them
when you cannot be there. If they truly know Him and know the great love of
Christ who gave Himself for their sins, they will want to please Him, beginning
on the heart level. As our kids grow in their walk with God, we should be able
to ease up on the number of rules, not impose more. Our goal is to get each
child to live under the lordship of Jesus Christ, in a growing personal
relationship with Him. Legalism takes an external approach; biblical
Christianity focuses on the heart relationship.
Conclusion
Some years ago, a church in Portland near a
college wanted to develop more of a ministry to the students. They weren’t sure
how to do it, but they tried to make them feel welcome. One Sunday, the church
was packed and the service was already underway when a young man with unkempt
hair, blue jeans, a T-shirt, and bare feet walked in. He came down the aisle,
looking for a seat, but he couldn’t find one. Finally, he just sat down on the
carpet at the front of the church. It created an uneasy atmosphere in this
crowd of people who were mostly dressed in suits and dresses, seated in their
rows of pews.
Then, every eye noticed an
elderly man in a suit walking slowly toward the young man. Everyone wondered,
“Is he going to scold the young man for dressing like that for church? Is he
going to ask him to leave?” There was a heavy silence in the church as everyone
focused on this scene. Finally, he got down to where the young man was sitting.
With some difficulty because of his age, he slowly sat down next to the young
man and worshiped there on the carpet with him. (Told by Becky Pippert, Out
of the Saltshaker and Into the World [IVP], pp. 177-178.) It was a
great example of not looking on the outward person or majoring on the minors,
but of accepting the person as God does.
Remember, Jesus hates legalism because it does
not deal with the condition of our sinful hearts before God. But Jesus loves
grace, because it is by His grace that He transforms sinners into saints who
love God and who love others.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 1999, All Rights
Reserved.
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