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. It was only later, as a result of the spread of the Gospel, that the word “Pharisees” became a common term for this kind of approach to one's relationship with God. As far as one can judge from the words of the Gospel, it is perhaps the most hopeless phenomenon from a religious point of view, because it makes people completely closed to God. God is Truth itself and Reality itself, but He is alive, and therefore there is no place for Him in hypocritical “spirituality.”

What, then, does the hypocrisy of the Pharisees consist in? Judging by what the Lord Jesus says to them, the whole point is that they turn the entire spiritual life toward themselves: the purpose of all their deeds and words is to solve their own problems, not God Himself. The hypocrite evades the living God with all his strength, because an encounter with Him would compel him somehow to relate his life to Him, to build it according to His will rather than his own. And the most terrible thing is that hypocrisy proved characteristic not of just anyone, but of the people's religious leaders.