NOTES for Mat 23:27-28

This passage speaks in the most definite terms about what in Russian has come to be associated with the term “Pharisaism”: outward, ostentatious piety and complete corruption within, at the very core. “You are like whitewashed tombs...” This can happen only to a person who does not know God, who sees not only what is outward, as people do, but also what is within and inaccessible to human sight.

Christ's stern words have lost none of their relevance over the past two thousand years. Moreover, it is obvious to us today that Pharisaism is not a feature of a particular religion or era; it arises again and again, even within Christianity itself. The causes of this phenomenon should therefore be associated rather with traits of character and the religious psychology of people. This is precisely why what Christ says is addressed for all time to this outward, ostentatious form of relationship with God—a form in which, in essence, there is no room for relationship itself.