Introduction
This is the word of the Lord,
Matthew 23:13–15 ESV
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.
As the more astute of you have possibly noticed, the ESV translation that I just read from or any of the other modern translations that you have in your hands, has a verse missing.
And you will find a footnote in your Bible’s mentioning the missing v14 and saying something along the lines of ‘Some manuscripts include this verse’.
This is because translators argue about whether this particular verse, among a few others, is or is not part of the original writing.
But we do not have the time now to dive deep into the subject of the tramission, preservation and translation of the Bible, to see how these differences arise.
However, I will say this, any and all of these differences are insignificant in affecting the theological fidelity of Scripture. For example, this verse 14 in this chapter is also found in Luke 20:47, and scholars have no confusion about the inclusion of that text in Scripture. So, in this case, the only question is if Matthew recorded it here or not. But we know for sure Luke did record it.
So, the question remains, do we consider v14 as part of Scripture or not. For now, I will leave it to you discern that for yourselves.
And, I will read v14 nevertheless.
Matthew 23:14 LSB
14 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
For the past three weeks, we’ve been considering the false doctrine of perpetual niceness – the centrepiece of this world’s teaching that above all virtues stand the treasury of mushy feelings.
The value placed upon a person’s feelings is much greater than the value of truth and sincerity.
And we saw how the kindness and mercy of Christ looks nothing like this. The kindness of Christ is the kindness that got him killed on a cross. And that cross became the salvation of the Christian and the damnation of the rest of the world.
This is the kind of kindness you are called to imitate. Therefore, when the world hates you, maligns you, persecutes you and even puts you to the death, it is salvation for the Christian and damnation for the rest of the world.
1 Corinthians 1:23 ESV
23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
We do not preach ‘Your best life now’, we preach Christ crucified. A message of folly and discomfort. The ‘Good’ in the good news of the Gospel does not refer to the butterflies you feel in your stomach when you hear it. The good is not about how you feel, but about how you can find true rest.
Now, we looked at that and made a case for biblical sarcasm and satire, much of which we see in this chapter.
And I also noted that the kind of satire that Jesus most employed, especailly in this chapter, is the Juvenalian satire, which is the in-your-face, direct, harsh and forceful way to mock.
But, let me remind you that in his Juvenalian satire here, there is more than just mockery. There is curse.
We all love to think about, preach about and share about Jesus’ soft side. But we would rather skip over, ignore and avoid any conversation around Jesus’ harsh side.
The man who welcomed the children into his arms is often worthy of our thought but not the man who beat the people out of the temple.
His words ‘your sins are forgiven’ evoke our emotions, wherease his words ‘how can I give to dogs what is reserved for the children’ feels to us as though Christ is breaking character.
‘You are Peter, the rock’ – we love that.
‘Get behind me Satan’ – we pity Peter for his mistake and excuse ourselves. But what would you have done in his stead if Jesus said he was going to die at the hands of his enemies?
Picture this. Jesus hanging on a cross saying “Father forgive them for they do not know what they do”. Now imagine that same Jesus looking at you and saying “Curse you”.
Let us not forget as I said last week that you are the Pharisee in these pages because you are more like them in their sinfulness than unlike them.
And so, when you hear these curses of Christ, let me remind you that unless you are covered by the righteousness of this Christ, unless you believe in him, unless you are truly saved – these curses are for you.
But if you are saved, the reality of these sins in your life ought to bring godly guilt that leads to repentance. Remember, you will know true disciples by their fruit.
Good trees do not bear bad fruit.
Matthew 7:18 ESV
18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.
Therefore, the principles laid out here, in this chapter, apply to all. If you are not Christian, repent and be saved from God’s judgment. And, if you are Christian, hate these sins with the utmost hatred and resist the devil in faith and he will flee from you.
Let’s not play games here. There is no ground of neutrality. You’re either with him or against him.
Matthew 12:30 ESV
30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
It is taught in biblical hermeneutic [the method of interpretation] that we are not supposed to read ourselves into the text of scripture.
But that does not mean that we cannot identify or relate with what is revealed in the Bible. And in doing so, let me encourage you to put effort in identifying or relating with the folly rather than with the exaltation of the characters in the Bible.
Let’s not water this down. Jesus always called sin, sin. He never let it slide. He never ignored it. Instead, he came to kill it, and on that cross he killed it once and for all, for those who would believe in his name. Romans 6:10
Romans 6:10 ESV
10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
Let us who follow him then, follow him truly. Make no room for sin to thrive and put every effort to make war with it.
Exegesis
This passage contains 7 woes or curses and they stand in contrast to the 7 beatitudes we find in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.
And the beatitudes go like this,
Matthew 5:3–11 ESV
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
But now, in Matthew 23, we see the woes. And they go like this,
Matthew 23:13 ESV
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.
Matthew 23:15 ESV
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.
Matthew 23:16 ESV
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.’
Matthew 23:23 ESV
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.
Matthew 23:25 ESV
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.
Matthew 23:27 ESV
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.
Matthew 23:29 ESV
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,
Here again, we can see how we memorise the former beatitudes and rarely read these latter woes. But let us look at this passage with the sincerity that is required of every Christian.
Let us look at ourselves as through a mirror that reveals our true nature so that if anything be found in remote similarity with the Pharisees, that we may humbly confess our sins, repent and turn to greater faith in the Son of God who nailed our sins on calvary.
Matthew 23:13 ESV
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.
The Prophet’s Curse
We see here, the prophet’s curse.
Of one thing we can be sure – that the evolution of language hasn’t rendered deeper meaning to words but rather has taken away that depth.
If anything, words have lost their potency – modern slangs and jargons have used them in all the inappropriate places.
What was inappropriate a generation ago is normative tongue in the streets of this generation.
In Matthew 12:36 we are warned that we will have to give an account for every careless word at the day of judgment, and yet, the world is unhinged, bold in their scattering of words and phrases not taking a moments thought about what they are actually saying.
Parents hurl curses at their children in the name of discipline. Children train in profanity because they think it makes them sound cool. The knife of the tongue has become a plaything.
Therefore, if a man curses in our day and age, the context of his speech, and his tone will determine what kind of curse it is. Was it a joke? Was it sarcasm? Or did he really mean what he just said?
But, the Pharisees and Scribes have no such confusion. The moment Jesus issues the curse, ‘woe’, they recognise exactly what’s happening. This is the prophetic utterance of the Prophet of prophets.
This has always been the job of the prophet – to be the voice of God to the people. To take of God’s revelation and bring it to the people.
Now, God would use such men as instruments to communicate his blessing or his judgment. And we see that throughout the OT.
So, when Jesus says ‘woe’ after the manner of the prophets of old, he is delivering the divine judgment upon the pharisees and scribes. And this intention of Christ is clear to all his hearers.
The word for ‘woe’ suggests a guttural outcry of anger, pain, or both. Jesus uses this word as a declaration of judgment upon the so-called self-appointed leaders of Israel.
This should give you a picture of the tone and volume that Jesus possibly employed in declaring these woes.
For the one who with a whip of cords drove the people out of the temple, and no one dared questioned him then, has now that same fire in his eyes.
And this Prophet of prophets is no mere prophet. He is God incarnate.
• to you, scribes and Pharisees
The fact that these curses are issued against the scribes and pharisees is significant because they were not alone in their rejection of Christ, for much of the general Jewish populace opposed Christ.
John 2:23–24 ESV
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.
24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people
John 4:48 ESV
48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”
Matthew 12:39 ESV
39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
If then, many of the Jews are complicit in this rejection of Christ, why is it that he pronounces judgment on the scribes and pharisees?
Because they are the leaders. They are the self-appointed heads of this household. They are the teachers, the guides, those whom the people follow. They claim to know and understand God’s word.
James 3:1 ESV
1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
Matthew 18:6 ESV
6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
It is amazing to me how so many Christians love to have the place of honour, to be teachers, mentors and counsellors. Yet, they fail to recognise the seriousness of these responsibilities.
For though all the people sin and will incur judgment, the flames of the wrath of that judgment will first touch the leaders of the people. They will be the first to give an account.
But let us not be mistaken in thinking that this judgment will not fall upon those who stand behind these leaders. Numbers 16:31-33
Numbers 16:31–33 ESV
31 And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart.
32 And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods.
33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.
They will all likewise be consumed who do not repent and turn from their sins.
The Wages of Hypocrisy
Like we saw last week, the sin of the Pharisees in all this is the sin of hypocrisy. For though they make much of themselves in their hearts before others, they lie and are hypcrites whose lives are wrought in sin.
The word for hypocrisy literally means to ‘act under a mask’. This is spiritual acting and only God knows how many so-called professing Christians will win their Oscars in hell.
Now, let me be clear. Though all hypocritical behaviour is sinful and must be dealt with, the kind of rampant hypocrisy we see here is of a very serious kind. This isn’t an issue of genuine misunderstanding on the part of the Pharisees but a diligent effort at deception.
• Hypocrisy can be the very real evidence of the lack of salvation. If you have to work hard to pretend to look like a Christian, instead of working hard to be Christian, you have to question your salvation.
“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” – C.S. Lewis
“There are many who would never think of telling a falsehood but are not ashamed to act one.” – Charles Spurgeon
• Hypocrisy is a serious offence. Pretending to be Christian is a serious offence, one that invoked not the grace of Christ, but the wrath of Christ.
• For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces
How do they shut the kingdom of heaven in peoples’ faces?
• Their hypocrisy has effectually resulted in shutting out the people from the kingdom that they claimed to bring them into.
What did these leaders do in their hypocrisy? In their blindness, they led the blind. Matthew 15:14
Matthew 15:14 ESV
14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
Here’s an example, Matthew 15:3-6
Matthew 15:3–6 ESV
3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”
6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.
This is what hypocrites do? They raise a high standard on tradition that surrounds the commandment of God. This distracts people from the real matters of the Law. And in so doing, it is an act of misdirection.
They shut people from the kingdom by leading them away to the carnal principles of this world, to things less at the cost of those that are more.
• Another way they do this is through the burden of legalism as we saw a few verses earlier in v4 of this chapter. Matthew 23:4
Matthew 23:4 ESV
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.
The people are so preoccupied with these legalistic artefacts that they never reach the gates of God’s kingdom unfamiliar with the truth of Hebrews 12:1
Hebrews 12:1 ESV
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
How the hypocrisy of many Christian parents have led their children astray! Heaping upon them the burden of unnecessary law and tradition instead of showing them the glory of Christ.
Why? Because it was easier. It was easier to heighten the standards of traditions cause they were easier to keep than the matters of the heart and true character. It was hard to lead by example in real faith and so they put on a mask and pretended.
And how many children grew up learning to imitate the pretending, and eventually to hate it.
It is not discipline that drives the child away from Christ. Proverbs 22:6
Proverbs 22:6 ESV
6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Training is profitable, but hypocrisy is damnable. The abandonment of the former and the pursuit of the latter are both terrible.
• For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in
• The hypocrite never enters the kingdom for he prefers the outer glory without the inner change. This is the reason he pretends. To enter would mean to be made new. That would be too real for him.
• And then through their hypocrisy they hinder others who would like to enter.
Matthew 23:15 ESV
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.
Evangelism in the OT
By and large, the OT religion of the Jews was not an overtly evangelistic one. As John Piper once said, “The OT was a come and see religion” whereas the NT is a “Go and Tell religion”.
So the practice of their faith in the OT had to do with Israel’s distinct identity in the world as the people of God. There were many who did come and become a part of this people, but evangelism was not a high priority.
But then, we see here the zeal for evangelism that the pharisees manifest. They travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte. The effort is much and the result is little, and yet, they pursue it with zeal.
Child of Hell
See here the Juvenalian unmasking of the Scribes and Pharisees. These so-called leaders of Israel, self-appointed, now unmasked by God as being not just children, but children of hell. This is a double insult.
And when such men evangelise, they make the proselytes twice the children of hell.
Introduction
This is the word of the Lord,
Matthew 21:23–27 ESV: 23 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
As we’ve traversed through the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21 has marked a stark distinction in how Jesus approaches his ministry on the earth.
He is no longer quiet about his Messianic identity. He is going all out. He has entered Jerusalem, the heart of the nation of Israel. He is marching to the cross.
He knows he will die here. His words and actions in Jerusalem will catapult the opposition into a blinded rage in an attempt to destroy this Jewish carpenter.
That is what the mind in the flesh does when it encounters the immovable and unstoppable truth of the Spirit. When you can’t argue or reason your way out, you suppress, you throw tantrums, and then you lash out.
Romans 1:18 ESV: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
Today’s sermon is about the suppression of truth, which is the de facto position of the human flesh. And now, as Christians, before you assume that I’m talking about those who are out there in the world and of the world and now about us, let me say it as clearly as I can, I’m talking about suppression of truth in your lives.
Even though you and I are a regenerate people who have our sins crucified on Christ’s cross, who are freed from the curse of sin and death, we are still beings in the flesh and the effects of sin and temptation continue to wage war in our bodies.
Jesus said in his High Priestly prayer, in John 17:15-16
John 17:15–16 ESV: 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
He also told us that, Matthew 18:7
Matthew 18:7 ESV: 7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!
We are no longer under the bondage of sin but sin is still a very pressing reality in our lives. We are called to fight because we have been given the means to defeat our flesh. We are not helpless anymore for the Lord Himself is our help.
1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV: 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
So, the force of temptation, the allure of sin and selfishness, pride, and all the weaknesses of the flesh are ever before us. The question is, “How intentional are we in this war?”.
Romans 6:1–2 ESV: 1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
This is how unintentional Christians think about their salvation. Since we are no longer under the curse of sin, how bad can it be if we fall? And Paul’s basic response is that such thinking isn’t Christian thinking. The Christian response to all sin is, “How can I live in this when I have died to it? I’m dead to this!”
The Christian does not justify or make room for sin, he knows it to be wrong and deals with it accordingly, like one who is dead to that kind of life.
Unrelenting Sleuth On the Scent of Truth
The most crucial and transformative period of my life in coming to a strong and rooted faith in Christ, as I’m sure is the case for many of you, was when I resolved to pursue truth. At some point in my life, it suddenly mattered as it should for all of you, what the truth was.
And when I say truth, I mean it from top to bottom. Not just about the higher philosophical realities of existence and purpose, but also about the reality of day-to-day life and decisions. I realized that it matters that we know why we do what we do and whether we should do what we do.
Life hung in the balance for me at that point because I had to make sense of questions like,
- Why am I here?
- What must I do?
- How must I honor my Father and Mother?
- When and how do I disagree with my parents?
- When do I pursue marriage?
- What do I do with my money?
- Whom do I marry?
- Can I fall in love?
- How do I treat women?
- What are the boundaries of friendship?
- Why must I do engineering?
- Do my grades really matter?
- How high should I aim?
- Can I have ambitions?
- How do I make the right decisions about career and lifestyle choices?
- What movies can I watch?
- Do I need to be a part of the church?
- How must I steward my generosity?
- How must I steward my time?
- Do I join this college or do I accept this job offer?
Trust me, I can go on and on and on and on, and not stop. So many Christians are stuck on so many of these questions because they’ve never bothered to be intentional about their pursuit of truth (about reality, about what really matters) in the small things that suddenly they are caught off guard as though something strange were happening to them. Then, they run to their prayer closets to seek God’s magical answer to their problem while also praying that they wouldn’t catch a cold from all the dust in that unused closet.
John Piper in his poem, The Calvinist, has this phrase – unrelenting sleuth on the scent of truth. Are you unrelenting in the pursuit of truth? I was and that has always been the bottom-most foundational reality in my Christian life. Everything I pursue has to align with what I believe to be true, and what I believe to be true must be ratified by the Bible.
Romans 1 against the whole wide world
Allow me some time to take you through the nature of the flesh as it is revealed in Romans 1. Now, mind you that when a sleuth finds himself in this chapter, he may end up MIA – Missing in Action. Romans 1 is like a mirror maze. Whichever way you turn and run, you run headfirst into your exposed self and it hurts. If there was ever a chapter in the Bible that was written to send the worldliness inside of you reeling in horror and fear, it is this one.
So, have a prayer in your heart for me as I go into Romans 1 and try to navigate our way through some of this truth in under 10 mins.
Paul begins by mentioning his intention in Romans 1:15
Romans 1:15 ESV: 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
• The apostle Paul is a very logically minded guy and you have to follow his reasoning. What we find after this statement is a cascade of causes. The conjunction ‘for’ in the Bible is a word that points you to the cause. It is a word that precedes the explanation, the reason.
• He is eager to preach the gospel. Not the five ways to please your wife or the 10 ways to hold your tongue. The Bible does speak about all these things and they need to be preached, but Paul’s talking about the essence of preaching, the centrality of the message regardless of what your topic might be. Everything comes out of this most central and unavoidable message, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Your eagerness to preach anything must be at its most fundamental level a desire to preach the Gospel.
Romans 1:16 ESV: 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
• According to Paul, the eagerness of preaching the Gospel is an unashamed love for it. This means that the hesitation to preach the Gospel may be a strong indicator that you are ashamed of the Gospel.
• Paul can’t imagine how one could be ashamed about the power of God that saves everyone who believes, whether Jew or Greek.
Romans 1:17 ESV: 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
• The Gospel is the power that saves because it is the revelation of God’s righteousness that is revealed from faith to faith.
• So you have to work your way back from these three cascading ‘for’s and see how God’s righteousness which is his just approval, moral perfection, the purest right that has no wrong; how this perfection of light with all its power is presented or revealed in the message of the Gospel which is that Jesus died and rose again so that if you believe in him you shall not perish but this pure and perfect light shall cleanse you, but if you do not believe in Christ, you will perish without any hope of a salvation.
He hashes out this judgment in the next verse,
Romans 1:18 ESV: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
• See how the Gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness, his salvation, and those who reject this salvation are called suppressers of the truth.
Jesus, when talking about our salvation said, in John 14:6
John 14:6 ESV: 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
This is the glory of the truth, that Jesus is the truth.
When Moses asked God for his name in Exodus 33, God responded with ‘I AM’. There is a reason that this is the highest name. When you and I use our names we are using words to represent who we are. They are identifying titles to who we are as a person. But who God is as a Being is Existence as we know it.
John 1:3 ESV: 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
No creature can claim to exist apart from God. We exist because he exists.
In much the same way, when Jesus says that he is the truth, he means to say that there is no truth if there is no Christ. He is the Truth.
Paul tells that Christ is the One,
Colossians 2:3 ESV: 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
There is no knowledge apart from knowing Christ. The one who forsakes Christ is forsaking knowledge.
Therefore, what sin does, what the flesh in unrighteousness does, is forsake Christ because you can’t argue with truth, you have to yield. But if you don’t want to yield, the only thing you can do is ‘suppress’.
And when you suppress, you forsake knowledge, wisdom, and above all, truth.
And God’s wrath is revealed against such people.
Romans 1:19–21 ESV: 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
• God has made plain to us the truth. Every act of creation, the cosmos is a constant megaphone declaring to you the truth about God. You cannot escape it. Therefore, sin is not ignorant, it is intentional. It is foolishness.
Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV: 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
God has always been speaking, and the coming of Jesus was the loudest and clearest speech. The Gospel is the loudest statement from Heaven.
So, in summarising this cascading causes in Romans 1, God has always been revealing the truth to the world, and the Gospel is the loudest and clearest message of truth. And through the Gospel is revealed the power of God for righteousness and salvation to those who are in the unrelenting pursuit of truth, but for those who suppress the truth the Gospel is the decisive stroke of judgment.
The Centrality of Truth
When the Gospel took such root in my life, I understood that I cannot answer any of the questions in my life meaningfully without the reality of this God in my life.
I understood that the only place that I can find the answers to all the questions pertaining to my life were in the pages of the Bible.
Cornelius Van Til, a Dutch-American philosopher and theologian was famously known to have said that The Bible is authoritative on everything of which it speaks. Moreover, it speaks of everything.
And this has been the foundation stone of much of my practical Christian life and even my apologetics.
Armed with this understanding, let us look at this short passage in Matthew 21
Exegesis
Matthew 21:23 ESV: 23 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
• Here we find Jesus back at the temple teaching the people. The Messiah had gone from cleansing the temple to healing the sick and now teaching them.
For all the parents in the room, here is a picture of how the rod of discipline should be used. Discipline is meant to drive out the evil, heal the wounded and to teach.
If you use the rod only to punish and not to heal or to teach, then you are in greater need of the rod than your children.
Be Christlike in your parenting. Let your anger heal and train, not destroy those whom God has placed under your care.
• If there was one thing that the people could not deny, it was the authority with which Jesus spoke and did what he did.
In an earlier passage we’d read,
Matthew 7:28–29 ESV: 28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
So, when Jesus chases out the money changers and traders from the temple courts and then heals the truly needy and teaches them in the place where only yesterday was buzzing with trade, the crowds are watching an authoritative man.
In fact, such was the authority with which he conducted himself that none opposed him as he disrupted trade across acres of land overturning the table of the money changers, beating and driving out birds and goats and the people.
• This again is the nature of Christ, the truth. Since God is the I AM, the only uncaused cause, the very embodiment of existence as we know it; that when he shows up, the authority of his presence will be unlike anything else that exists. When God walks into the room so-to-speak, it’ll be unlike anyone else walking into the room. His very existence is existence.
And here, standing before these Jews was the very truth incarnate, the highest truth and instead of falling flat on their face, they wanted to know his credentials.
This is what the flesh does when it encounters truth. You cannot deny it, debate it, overpower it, so you suppress, you dismiss, and what better way to do that than you try and discredit it.
• By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?
This question is two-fold. It questions Jesus’ authority and the one who gave him that authority. They cannot question the reasoning behind his cleansing of the temple, they cannot deny the reality that people are healed, and they cannot argue with his teaching. So, they ask for his qualifications.
Matthew 13:55 ESV: 55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
John 1:46 ESV: 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
Matthew 21:24 ESV: 24 Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.
• For those of you here who are more technically aligned, here is an example of what we call pre-suppositional apologetics. Jesus does not rush to satisfy their request to see the evidence of his qualification. Instead, he presupposes their worldview according to which it does not matter if someone is speaking the truth or doing good things, it matters that he is officially given such authority.
Matthew 21:25–26 ESV: 25 The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
• According to their worldview, if they denied John’s authority, the crowds would turn against them because they believed he is a prophet. On the other hand, if they agreed that it was from heaven, then they are caught for not believing him. Jesus knew that the Chief priests and elders were behaving inconsistently. That they were swayed not by credentials but by the lust for power and the authority they possessed over the people. This forced them to behave inconsistently in how they dealt with John’s ministry. Though they themselves did not believe John, they did not oppose him in front of the crowd.
• Now, see how when push comes to shove, they weren’t bothered about the truth. They did not want to answer truthfully. ‘If we say this, then…’
So many of us in our flesh deal with life in this manner. These chiefs, elders of the people would not answer truthfully because it would either lose them their popularity or it would hurt their ego.
Is Truth your higher treasure? Or are you all about truth when it is most convenient for you?
• How would you deal with sin if it were pointed out to you by your children? Would you receive it or would you question the maturity of their age, their authority?
• The piety of these elders of Israel was an outer display with no inward reality. They prayed aloud so that they could be seen by others, they were generous so that people would speak highly of them.
Are you the same Christian on the inside as you have shown yourself to be on the outside?
When push comes to shove, are you as heavenly minded as you say you are? Do you desire the glory of his name, the glory of his church, and building of his kingdom above all things? Or do you desire your own welfare more?
• Doug Wilson talks about how Christians like to put sin and righteousness on the stuff rather than weigh it upon their hearts. Some like to see their righteousness in the fact that they don’t watch movies, listen to secular music or hang around with unbelievers. Yet none of these things prove any measure of your righteousness.
If you must know, your pastor watches movies, listens to secular music, and hangs around with his unbeliever friends. The measure of my righteousness is not found in me avoiding this world because I am in this world. It must be measured by how much the world has not mastered me, but how in Christ I have mastered the world.
Have you not read Paul who wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:23
1 Corinthians 10:23 ESV: 23 “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
• How true is your faith? How genuine is your confession? How passionate are you to want truth to be the banner over your home?
It is easy to be a Christian on a Sunday morning and behind a pulpit. But how Christian are you at home?
Matthew 21:27 ESV: 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
• We do not know – In what they thought would be a wise response, they revealed their foolishness. These who came to question Jesus’ authority were people without knowledge. They were left empty and their response shows their lack of authority.
Christ who spoke and worked with such authority stood in stark contrast to these who could not answer his question.
So, Jesus establishes his superior authority by revealing the spiritual nakedness of the Jewish elite.
• And as John Piper pointed out, “Jesus does not deal with those who suppress the truth.”
Conclusion
Jesus who is the very embodiment of truth, does not deal with those who do not love the truth.
The spiritually mature person is one who has gone down further along the road of truth, those who are more aware of it and have aligned their lives to it.
• Anxiety – Trust
• Interests of others
• Dependence on God more than money
• Obey scripture more than culture
• Pray more
• Whose ambitions serve the Glory of God and the good of his Church
