NOTES for Mat 23:13-22

The bitter words we read today are addressed by the Lord Jesus Christ not so much to the Pharisees as a group as to religious hypocrisy in general. Only later, as the Gospel spread, did the word “Pharisees” become a common name for such a hypocritical approach to one's relationship with God.

As far as we can judge from the words of the Gospel, this hypocrisy is perhaps the most hopeless thing from a religious point of view, because it makes people completely closed to God. God is Truth itself and Reality itself, but He is living, and therefore there is no place for Him in hypocritical “spirituality.”

What, then, is the hypocrisy of the Pharisees? It can probably be defined briefly as follows. Judging by what the Lord Jesus says to them, the whole problem is that they turn all spiritual life toward themselves: the purpose of all their actions and words is to solve their own problems, not to seek God Himself. The hypocrite evades the living God with all his strength, because an encounter with Him would compel the hypocrite somehow to relate his life to God and to build it according to God's will rather than his own. The most terrible thing is that hypocrisy proved characteristic not just of anyone, but of the people's religious leaders.