Introduction
This is the word of the Lord,
Matthew 23:25–28 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.
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.
Let us pray.
Jesus knows how to throw a punch
Jesus is on a cursing-spree in Matthew 23 and he has the scribes and Pharisees in a state of hysteria, in panic.
Not only have they repeatedly attempted at faulting Jesus, trying to trap him in his theology, but the result of all those attempts culminated in their defeat in Matthew 22:46, where we are told
Matthew 22:46 ESV
46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
In this theological showdown, not only has Christ defended himself against all of their philosophical and theological punches, but now he has them backed into a corner, and he launches a relentless barrage of prophetic blows, each one hitting them where it hurts the most.
Look at the repeated blows that Christ delivers against the scribes and Pharisees – [v13,15,23,25,27,29]
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
And then consider the additional phrases of
You blind guides, child of hell, You fools, blind men, blind Pharisee
It is true of ancient literature that repetition was a way of emphasising a point. That is why you have phrases such as ‘Truly, truly’ or the repetitions in the book of Psalms and in other places in the Bible.
Here you have the repetition of the curses, some phrases repeated verbatim.
The Grace of his rebuke
Good and reasonable apologists tell us that we are not meant to win the argument at the cost of losing our opponent. We are meant to win our opponent even if it sometimes costs us the argument.
But this does not mean that we are to pull our punches. It means that our punches must be well directed for the good of their soul.
And sometimes the stern rebuke that saves the soul is more painful than the one that wins the argument.
That is what we see here. Christ, the righteous one, issues an artillery strike on the scribes and Pharisees because they need to hear it.
The persuasion and power of the debater who loves his opponent will therefore be far more zealous than the argument of the one who wants to score a point. Because to the former, this is a matter of life and death.
Jesus who cleansed the temple with a whip of cords, now cleanses the people with a whip of words.
His zeal for his Father’s house consumed him and he said, in Matthew 21:13
Matthew 21:13 ESV
13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
But now as Jesus uses the whip of words, listen to his accusation, Matthew 23:25
Matthew 23:25 LSB
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.
O Christian, have you not read 1 Corinthians 6:19
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 much of what Jesus is doing here with the scribes and Pharisees is what he did with the temple.
This isn’t a passion to win the argument, it is the zeal for his Father’s house, which in the OT was the physical temple, and now is you.
The Judgment of his rebuke
But don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the rebuke of Christ is all of grace and no judgment. No, it is grace for those who are led to repentance by it and it is judgment for those who would deny it.
This is a double-edged sword capable of piercing to the division of salvation and judgment. It is either the cut that leads to repentance or the cut that leads to death.
This is the dual function of the cross and of God’s word. Salvation to those who heed it, and judgment to those who reject it. John 8:31-32
John 8:31–32 ESV
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Matthew 7:26–27 ESV
26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Our Subject Matter
And on attacking the hypocrisy of these self-appointed spiritual leaders of Israel, we have seen Christ expose the effects of hypocrisy on
1. Evangelism – Obstruction of salvation & the indoctrination of hell
2. Teaching – Lying & the twisting of Scripture
3. Discernment – And today, we are going to see the compromise of priorities, the dangerous imbalance of false piety.
And now we see its effects on our sanctification, our personal holiness.
Exegesis
In this passage, Jesus uses two analogies to describe the state of the Pharisees’ heart.
The first is a common household picture, something that everyone can relate to, about clean utensils.
The second is a more intense, a more darker and provocative analogy, about graveyards.
Now, these aren’t complicated analogies. They speak clearly and we are told of the hypocrisy in their holiness.
The First Analogy
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.
• The curse is issued with the same repetitive phrase – ‘woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!’ – to a group of hypocrites who have their conscience seared in their evangelism to their teaching, their discernment and even to their personal holiness.
• you clean the outside of the cup and the plate – There is here some amount of cleansing happening.
You see, the way of the hypocrite is in many ways far more perilous than the way of those who expressly reject Christ.
2 Timothy 3:13 ESV
13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
The impostor is both deceiving by his craft, and is also himself being deceived.
The pharisees in this hypocritical act of cleaning the outside and not the inside are deceiving others but are in themselves being deceived that at some point they really think that they are holy.
This is the dangerous position of the false Christian.
• but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence
The two words used here refer to the ‘act of plundering (robbery)’ and ‘lack of self-control’.
Not all hypocrites necessarily have the same sin hidden beneath their mask but you will find the common traits and patterns in all of them.
Here we are given what was hidden in the case of the Pharisees.
They were plundering both the souls and the wallets of the people they were supposed to serve in order to satisfy their greed.
John MacArthur points out that ‘Throughout history, false religious leaders have become rich and fat by fleecing those they pretend to serve. Outwardly they appear righteous, caring, and exemplary, but inwardly they are rapacious wolves.’
But notice how they are also lacking in self-control. Outwardly they are extremely controlling – they have a law for everything – but inwardly they are lawless.
[self-control -> food, phone, desires & passions]
Notice also how Jesus says that they are full of these sins on the inside. This is not some hypocritical behaviour, this is rampant hypocrisy. As high as the appearance of their piety is, so full was their hidden sin.
Matthew 23:26 ESV
26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
• Cleansing ought to start from the inside. Faith must first penetrate the inward part of the man.
I don’t know how you wash your cups or plates, but I always tend to start with the inside and work my way to the outside.
Here is then how you avoid hypocrisy – first clean the inside.
Every sermon, every parable, every prayer, every song, every exhortation, every testimony, every reading, each and every part of this service is meant for you to first wash your hearts before you wash your hands and your feet.
• It is spiritual blindness that ignores the inner change.
• Also, the way the sentence is structured here seems to suggest that by cleaning the inside, the outside will naturally become clean.
We know this is true because, Luke 6:45
Luke 6:45 ESV
45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
And so a man cleansed on the inside will not just have an appearance of holiness on the outside, he will be holy through and through.
It might help us at this stage to consider the doctrines of general and divine revelation.
General & Divine Revelation
The Reformers articulated clearly what the early church fathers had held to in what is called the ‘general’ and the ‘divine’ revelations of God.
• The General or Natural revelation of God is the revelation of God’s glory as it is depicted by the natural world and is observable to all mankind.
Romans 1:19–20 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.
This general revelation leaves mankind without excuse and for the sinner it is a damning revelation because it does not save.
As the ‘imago dei’ (images of God) every human being can recognise the glory of the divine, but that is not the same as loving and desiring the divine.
Natural revelation saves no man.
• But the divine revelation of God is the revelation that brings faith. It is the revelation that God brings from his word that convicts the individual of sin, his need for rescue, the redemption of Christ, and leads him to repentance and salvation.
Romans 10:17 ESV
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Psalm 19 ESV
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
• What you have in this precious Psalm is a depiction of natural and divine revelation, and David seems to distinguish the two by the words he uses to refer to God in one and in the other.
For all that the Pharisees understood, they did not possess the divine revelation of God. John 5:39-40
John 5:39–40 ESV
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
The hypocrite can read the laws and understanding something of the effect of love, grace, mercy and judgment. But what he cannot do is be captivated by them in spirit and in truth.
John 3:3–5 ESV
3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
The Second Analogy
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.
• In this second analogy, Jesus invokes the picture of tombs – burial sites.
John MacArthur in his commentary tells us that the Palestinian Jews had the custom of whitewashing houses, walls and particular tombs to make their communities more attractive for the Passover pilgrims.
But there was an additional reason why they did this.
According to the law, anyone who touched a grave was considered ceremonial unclean for seven days.
Numbers 19:16 ESV
16 Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
So by whitewashing the tombs, travellers wouldn’t accidentally touch the tombs and inadvertently become ceremonially unclean.
• The scribes and Pharisees are like these whitewashed tombs that appear beautiful on the outside.
• but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness –
If the first analogy addressed the issue of the hypocrite’s hidden sin, this one addresses the state of the hypocrite’s inner man.
And the picture is grotesque. It is the picture of darkness, of those who do not know God.
Full of the bones of the dead. Their inner man is a valley of dry bones that have no life.
This is the desolate desperate picture of that church-going, Bible-thumping, doctrinally-ecstatic, gifted professing Christian whose inner-man, whose private life does not reflect the glory of God.
Notice the use of the words ‘full of’ and ‘all’, again depicting the measure of the impurity, unholiness and death that fills the heart of the hypocrite.
• But notice also what such an analogy implies. These scribes and Pharisees were the self-appointed teachers of Israel. Matthew 23:2
Matthew 23:2 LSB
2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses;
But they are whitewashed tombs full of death and uncleanness on the inside. But they are tombs, so if anyone were to touch them or be touched by them, they would be unclean.
The unholiness of the leadership that the work of their ministry resulted in the unholiness and damnation of the people they claimed to serve.
They spiritually defiled those who touched them and those whom they touched.
Conclusion
Matthew 23:28 ESV
28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
There is an appearance of righteousness that masks a life full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Matthew 7:21–23 ESV
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
The Lord your God is not pleased by you calling him Lord, or by you working in the ministry, or even by you doing mighty things, if you are not as a people, a truly righteous people.
To merely recognise yourself as a sinner is to have the general revelation of God. Many unbelieving, nominal Christians agree with that confession.
But it is one thing to see it as a mere fact, and another thing to be heartbroken by your sin.
So, if these are whitewashed tombs, what are they to do? How are they to be saved?
Because there was once a traveller who stood in front of a tomb and cried out, “Lazarus, come out”.
Ezekiel 37:3–10 ESV
3 And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
8 And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them.
9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
This is the Lord now himself who calls you out of the tomb of death to be born-again.
And this Jesus, your Lord and Saviour, did this by dying and laying himself in the tomb, and then rising again. On that Sunday, as Jesus rose, the stone was rolled away and no one has ever set it back in its place.
Because death could not keep, death cannot keep you either, you who are in Christ Jesus.
Hypocrisy is not the way of the Christian. It is the way that the Christian abandoned in the tomb when he was united with this Christ.
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
