Several years ago, Lifeway conducted a survey of people who left the church between the ages of 18 and 22. Among the top five reasons, second place went to the charge of hypocrisy.[i] Many find Christianity less plausible because of hypocrisy in the church—they know Christian beliefs, but those beliefs don’t square with pastors abusing authority or churches hiding injustice. What are we to say?

Well, we could ask them to consider how their own judgments are moral ones. To call anything wrong (like hypocrisy) requires that you accept a source of moral authority by which all are judged. That leads to the moral argument for God and so on. We could also say, by experience, that we’re often better at seeing hypocrisy in others while missing hypocrisy in ourselves. We need the church to help expose blindness.

But more importantly, the awareness of hypocrisy should leave people running to Jesus, not abandoning him. Why? Because Jesus hates hypocrisy; and where it’s truly present, he exposes it and judges it. That’s what we’ll see today: the kingdom of heaven exalts humility and excludes hypocrisy. Let’s pick it up in verse 1…

¹ Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ² “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, ³ so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. ⁴ They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. ⁵ They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, ⁶ and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues ⁷ and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. ⁸ But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. ⁹ And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. ¹⁰ Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. ¹¹ The greatest among you shall be your servant. ¹² Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. ¹³ But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. ¹⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. ¹⁶ Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁷ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸ And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁹ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ²⁰ So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. ²¹ And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. ²² And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. ²³ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. ²⁴ You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! ²⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶ You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. ²⁷ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸ So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. ²⁹ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, ³⁰ saying, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” ³¹ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. ³³ You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? ³⁴ Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, ³⁵ so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶ Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. ³⁷ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁸ See, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹ For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Chapter 23 unfolds in three parts. First, we’ll see Jesus’ call to humility in verses 1-12. Then, we get Jesus’ woes against hypocrisy in verses 13-36. Lastly, we’ll see Jesus’ lament for the city in verses 37-39.

Jesus’ Call to Humility

First, Jesus’ call to humility in verses 1-12. Jesus begins with how the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Not a literal “seat” but an image for teaching authority. As we’ve seen, the scribes and Pharisees specialize in the Law/Moses. Often, they question Jesus from that Law. But we’ve also seen how they misapply the Law or miss its point entirely. Jesus addresses some of this in the Sermon on the Mount. Also, in 12:1-13, they don’t understand the Sabbath. In 15:1-9, they don’t get purity. In 19:1-9, they misapply Moses’ concession about divorce. They’re not doing so well.

Which is why it’s confusing that Jesus says in verse 3, “so do and observe whatever they tell you.” There are several ways to take that. I’ll give you two. One is that Jesus is saying to follow their teaching only where they represent Moses faithfully. But he could also be speaking sarcastically. That is, the rest of verse 3 and the following woes qualify things. They highlight the dangers of what happens when you do follow them. Either way, these leaders pretend to represent Moses. But the only real authority on Moses is Jesus. So, what does Jesus think about these religious leaders?

For starters, he says they preach without practice in verse 3. They’re good at repeating what Scripture says but not obeying it.[ii] Their public ministry told one story; their private character told another. They live a double life.

Jesus also points out how they burden without mercy. Verse 4, “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.” Pharisees built strict hedges around the Law to make sure no one erred.[iii] But with those hedges came a crushing yoke. No longer was the Law a gracious gift from God. No longer was the Law a prophetic pointer to God’s mercy coming in Jesus. The Law became an end in itself.

So, when people are hungry in 12:1, you’re not interested in mercy, you’re just mad when folks crack a few sunflower seeds on the Sabbath. When a man has a broken hand, you’re not interested in mercy, you’re appalled that Jesus heals him. Under this yoke, people would toil to please God, but there was only more guilt. Far better was the teaching of Jesus. “Come to me,” he said, “all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” The very heart of Jesus is one that’s willing to take the lower position to raise you up. The Pharisees lack such a heart.

They also want greatness without humility. Verses 5-7, “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.” They serve not to please God, but to look good in front of others.

They preach without practice; they burden without mercy; they want greatness without humility. Jesus says to his disciples, “Don’t follow them in this.” Instead, he calls us to humility. Verse 8, “But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.”

Jesus isn’t forbidding the use of “father” or “instructor” in every sense. Paul calls himself a “father” to Timothy, for instance. Rather, Jesus’ point is that disciples should not love titles that give them an exalted status. Why? Because only Jesus gets the exalted status in church. He is the Christ; and in him we become family. Family members relate on a first-name basis. In Jesus, we also have direct access to the Father of all fathers. In this way, Jesus centers the new community around himself.

When the community is centered on Jesus, we follow Jesus in humility. He says in verse 11, “The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” The kingdom of heaven exalts humility. What about you? Do you find yourself concerned with status? Are you disappointed when others don’t recognize you, don’t put you forward? “How many “likes” did I get?” “Don’t I deserve more respect than this? After all I’ve done!” In our flesh, we’d rather be magnified than crucified.

But Jesus measures greatness by those who choose the path of humility. In Jesus’ kingdom, the way up is the way down. The cross precedes the crown. By following this path of humility, we image for others what Jesus did for us. He says here, “The greatest among you shall be your servant.” Last time he said something like this was 20:26-27, “whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus is God, but he took the form of a servant. Jesus is first, but he became last of all. Not just to give you an example, but to free you from every selfish impulse that stifles humility. As Scripture says, “[Christ] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” There’s no other way besides humility. Kingdom people must reflect the humility of the King.

So, pray for the Lord to make us humble, that we too would become gentle and lowly in heart. Pray for the Lord to make us servants. Pray that we would be doers of the word—that we would have a humble spirit submissive to God’s word, so that we don’t preach without practice. Pray that we don’t burden people without mercy but love showing mercy, love getting down low beneath the weight of people’s burdens and lifting them with the good news of Jesus. Pray that we wouldn’t love looking great before others but being great in the eyes of our Father. The kingdom of heaven exalts humility. Psalm 149:4, “The LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.”

Jesus’ Woes against Hypocrisy

But if the kingdom exalts humility, the flipside is that it necessarily excludes hypocrisy. We find that next in verses 13-36, Jesus’ woes against hypocrisy. Six times he calls these leaders “hypocrites.” A hypocrite is a pretender. He puts up a front; but behind the mask is an altogether different person. Let me use the words of Tim Challies and Kevin DeYoung to make this clearer. “Hypocrisy is not the disparity between what we are and what we long to be.”[iv] Hypocrisy is using “the veneer of public virtue to cover the rot of private vice. He’s the man living a double life, the woman fooling her friends because she has church clothes”[v] and so on. Jesus is after that with these woes.

Also important: in Scripture, a woe anticipates calamity, often in the context of judgment. Woes often denounce the guilty and set their punishment in motion. Jesus does that here. Not only does he mention the ultimate sentence of hell in verse 33; he also ends verse 36 with, “all these things will come upon this generation.” There are judgments these religious leaders will suffer very soon; Jesus’ woes get that ball rolling.

There are seven woes here. Seven often signifies fullness in Scripture. But they also seem to unfold in sets of two with seven acting as the climax. So, let’s take woes one and two together. He says, “You shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” Then verse 15: “you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte (i.e., convert), and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

Are they zealous? Yes. Evangelists? Yes. But what are they winning people to? Not the kingdom. No, they were slamming that door shut. How were they doing this? Well, Jesus spoke to this some in 5:20, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Then he goes on to explain what that righteousness looks like. It’s not mere external adherence to the Law; it involved a new heart. But the Pharisees kept preaching external adherence.

We’ve also seen how their use of the Law became an end instead of a pointer to God’s mercy in Jesus. Hypocrisy will always promote appearing good externally and exclude a dependence on God’s mercy in Christ. When you tell people they’re good just by following these lists, when you call people to a life devoid of God’s mercy in Christ, it slams the door of the kingdom. It leads you and them to hell.

Woes three and four develop this further. Here we see their teaching at work. They make room for some oaths to matter and others not; and they do this by assigning more importance to certain things in the temple. Swear by the temple? Means nothing. But if you swear by the gold of the temple—that one counts. Swear by the altar? Means nothing. But if you swear by the gift on the altar—that one counts.

Now, in part, Jesus spoke to this in 5:33-37; and there he showed how this sort of thinking promotes dishonesty. Here he shows how they’ve gotten things backwards. The temple, not the gold, made things sacred. The altar, not the gift, made things sacred. Why? Because that’s where God dwelled and revealed himself above the mercy seat. The whole point of the temple was fellowship with God. Again, they’re all about parsing out external conformity to traditions without knowing God.

That’s true in woe four as well: “You tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” Their folly is seen in being so fixated on the tiniest minutia while missing the glaringly obvious: justice, mercy, faithfulness.

Mark’s Gospel shows how they’d make long prayers and at the same time devour widows’ houses. They neglected justice. They also neglected mercy. Jesus called them on this in 9:13 after they despise Jesus for eating with tax collectors. He does it again in 12:7 after they fault the disciples for picking grain on the Sabbath. Both times Jesus tells them to go study Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” Jesus was helping them see how the rituals, the temple, the Sabbath—it was all pointing to God’s mercy in Christ. But all they want is God’s favor without any love for God’s mercy.

He continues with woes five and six. Verse 25, “you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” Verse 27, “You’re like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

In Matthew, we’ve seen how Jesus’ kingdom is upside-down to the way we often think—the greatest must become a servant. Here we’re learning that Jesus’ kingdom is also inside-out. Hypocrites make themselves look good on the outside while neglecting the heart. They think good external behavior is all that matters. But that’s a sham. To enter the kingdom, one must be changed from within; and that only comes through Jesus. The Pharisees didn’t want to hear that. It was all about looking good on the outside.

Which leads to the final, climactic woe in verse 29. They make sure the prophets of old get nice tombs. They decorate the monuments of the righteous. Publicly, they make it look like they’re the good guys. They even boast in verse 30, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have shed the blood of the prophets.” But it’s all a façade; and Jesus exposes it. He shows how they will kill him and his followers, who stand in the line of those prophets and righteous ones:

“Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.”

From Abel (Genesis 4) to one of the last prophets in Scripture (Zechariah)—they were killed for proclaiming God’s truth and preparing for the Messiah. Now Jesus sends more messengers (including himself) and these religious leaders—even though they put on a show of being more righteous than their ancestors—they will prove to be just as guilty. They have only murder reserved for those who expose them. Barring repentance, these leaders will not enter the kingdom. Because the kingdom of heaven exalts humility and excludes hypocrisy.

I don’t know about you, but I find Jesus’ words to be a comfort, especially for the persecuted and abused. Throughout Matthew, who persecutes Jesus’ disciples? The hypocritical leaders. Who will soon kill them and persecute them from town to town? The hypocritical leaders. Who’s leading large swaths of people astray, keeping them from entering the kingdom? The hypocritical leaders. Now here’s Jesus pronouncing woes against these leaders—exposing their hypocrisy, initiating their downfall.

But did you catch it in verse 1? He’s speaking “to the crowd and to his disciples.” It’s his compassion for the crowd and the disciples that he speaks this way. It’s his care and concern for the abused that he speaks this way. Some people struggle with Jesus using such harsh language. But when the wolf attacks your sheep, you don’t mess around. When other men seek to harm your Bride, you say something. It’s because Jesus is gentle and lowly that he speaks this way to those who mistreat his people. Disciples should be encouraged by these woes. In the end, the evils of hypocrisy will not win. Your Lord sees the wrong and he will judge hypocrisy. That’s comforting.

Jesus’ woes also equip us in the meantime. We know from his words what to look out for—in our own lives and in the life of the church. Hypocrisy is all about externals and not about the heart. It focuses on minutia and misses mercy. It pretends to be good and opposes Christ when his word exposes the façade. Christ shows that it’s appropriate to address hypocrisy in the church; he reserves the strongest language against it. That’s why the apostles didn’t hesitate to address it.[vi]

The answer isn’t to leave Christianity when instances of hypocrisy are present but to follow Jesus in addressing them. The answer is to run to Jesus and learn from him. He sees it best of all, because only in him do we find perfection and faithfulness. Only in him do we find zero hypocrisy. Churches must learn from how Jesus deals with hypocrites and follow him in exposing it and correcting it. The stakes are too high.

These woes comfort; they equip. They also stand as a warning. Hear his question again? “How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” If your trust is in your own goodness like these hypocrites, how are you to escape hell? You won’t. There’s no good news in pretending to be good. But here’s the good news. Jesus answers the question for us: “How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” Jesus is going to the cross. That’s the answer. That’s the only way you escape the sentence of hell: God’s mercy in Christ at the cross. The cross of Christ is where Jesus lays down his life to forgive your sins. Yes, even the sin of hypocrisy.

Think of Paul’s testimony. He lived as a Pharisee (Acts 26:5). He was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent of Christianity (1 Tim 1:13). “But,” he says, “I received mercy…and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” If Jesus’ words have exposed you as a hypocrite, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You will escape the sentence of hell. The door of the kingdom will not be slammed in your face. In Christ, the door of the kingdom will be flung open for you to enter.

Jesus’ Lament over the City

Finally, Jesus’ lament over the city. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he says, “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” God has attributes—he is holy, loving, merciful, gracious—and sometimes God helps us understand his attributes using analogical language. God is love, and God being love has a likeness to how we conceive love. In Scripture, sometimes he might use the analogy of a father’s love for his son. Other times he might use the analogy of a mother’s tenderness for her child.

And sometimes, like here, he uses the analogy of animals. “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” The same Jesus who rips the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, now says of the whole city: how often would I have gathered you—to have you close, to protect you. These woes have a context of the Lord’s compassion, his heart to gather the children of Israel. But they, for the most part, were not willing to come.

The result, again, is judgment. Verse 38, “See, your house is left to you desolate.” House, meaning the temple. The point of the temple was God dwelling in their midst. Jesus is God dwelling in their midst. But he will soon leave that temple; and when he does, “your house will be desolate.” “For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

We’ve heard those words before. They’re the same words the crowd was shouting in 21:9 when Jesus entered Jerusalem. They’re the same words of Psalm 118—the Cornerstone passage that we’ve looked at several times now. For them to say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” would be for them to acknowledge Jesus as the anointed King in David’s line, Jesus as the Cornerstone, Jesus as the one who willingly lays down his life to see his people singing in God’s presence.

Question is, when was that going to happen? Some will push the fulfillment of these words to the end of time. Perhaps it looks to Jesus’ return. But others read the word “until” as a condition. That is, you cannot truly see Jesus again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” So, if you want to see him, confess him as the Christ. Read that way, it’s something that anyone could do in the days leading up to Jesus’ return. Either way, the passage is telling us what to confess about Jesus.

He is the Christ. He is the Savior. He is worthy of our blessing and honor and praise. To ignore him is to suffer the same judgment as these hypocrites. To ignore him is to live as if “you’re okay without Jesus,” when in fact you’re not. But for those who know their need of Jesus, for those who choose the path of humility with Jesus, for those who say “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”—they will be exalted. Because the kingdom of heaven exalts humility and excludes hypocrisy.

________

[i] Lifeway Research, “Most teenagers drop out of church when they become young adults,” Lifeway Research (January 15, 2019), accessed at https://research.lifeway.com/fast-facts/.

[ii] Cf. Rom 2:17-24; Jas 1:22.

[iii] Mark 7:3-4 describes how they made people wash before eating, and “there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.”

[iv] Tim Challies, “God Hates Hypocrisy,” Challies (January 14, 2017), accessed at https://www.challies.com/articles/god-hates-hypocrisy/.

[v] Kevin DeYoung, “What Is Hypocrisy?” The Gospel Coalition (December 13, 2012), accessed at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/what-is-hypocrisy/.

[vi] Paul addresses it in Romans 2 with some Jewish teachers who boasted in the Law while themselves breaking the Law. In Galatians 2, Paul rebukes Peter for shrinking back from eating with Gentiles, such that the Jews and Barnabas were led astray by hypocrisy. First Peter 2:1 tells Christians to “put away all deceit hypocrisy.”