Introduction
Matthew 23:16–22 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.’ 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.
Recap
Without taking a lot of time on a recap, here is the basic context we’re in. Standing in contrast to the 7 beatitudes in Matthew 5, we have here the 7 woes or curses of Christ.
As Christians, we believe every word of the book. 2 Timothy 3:16
2 Timothy 3:16 ESV
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
Note the emphasis on the word ’all’ here. Not some of the scripture but all of the scripture. As Christians who belong to the reformed camp, we must not forget that Sola Scripture doesn’t just mean that Scripture forms the foundational grounds for all our beliefs, but that every part of Scripture holds equal authority in serving us with such solid grounds.
Therefore, we don’t get to pick and choose verses that most suit us. We ought not to meditate on the beatitudes at the cost of the woes or vice versa.
Theological Deficiencies
In this present age, Christians broadly suffer from two illnesses. They suffer from two theological deficiencies.
a. The lack of logic
b. The lack of categories
And these deficiencies cannot be mitigated by a dump of facts. They are problems in the way of thinking and in the approach to reasoning. Much of the labour of the preachers and teachers of this church is not merely to lecture in facts (though we do a lot of that); but is a training in thinking, in forming the Christian worldview.
An example of this lack can be seen in many Christian’s inability to harmonise the beatitudes and the woes. I know of families that read through the Psalms but avoid reading those imprecatory Psalms as though David was suddenly possessed by the strange mean spirit of the God of the Old Testament.
Not only can they not logically harmonise these texts, but they also lack the categories to do so. In a time so full of grace and mercy, they don’t know what to do with judgment. Or even how it factors in.
So, they courteously apologise for David’s shenanigans and Christ’s tantrums, and move on to brighter passages. But these are neither shenanigans nor tantrums – they’re profitable for teaching, corrections and training in righteousness.
You are not children
One of the things that was recently brought to my attention, especially when preaching on the subject of satire and sarcasm, much of which Jesus uses in this chapter, was that people may not be wise in the way they employ their sarcasm. I believe one or two of the questions after some of those sermons may reveal the same concern. So, I think it is only reasonable that I address this concern.
Let us say I preach a sermon on loving your children, would we be equally concerned about whether parents might be unwise in their loving, that they might emotionally smother their children at the cost of discipleship?
Or if I preach a sermon on disciplining children, encouraging that we do not spare the rod, as it is written in Proverbs 13:24
Proverbs 13:24 ESV
24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.
Would we be equally concerned that maybe parents would not be wise in the judicial use of the rod?
The point here is that you can preach about any virtue or discipline and the people can be unwise in their use of it.
When I say that watching movies, in and of itself, is not sinful, I am not saying that you cannot sin by watching movies.
For example, when Paul addresses the issue of eating vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, he concludes by leaving it to the conscience of the individual when he says in Romans 14:23
Romans 14:23 ESV
23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is a sin.
But it is not as though Paul did not make his position clear.
Paul teaches authoritatively that eating non-veg is not sinful.
Romans 14:14 ESV
14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.
In fact, he addresses the one who eats meat as having the stronger faith.
Romans 14:2 ESV
2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
So, if eating non-veg is in and of itself not sinful, one can still sin by eating non-veg. And he can sin in multiple ways – gluttony, idolatry and breach of conscience.
In much the same way, watching movies is in and of itself not sinful, but one can sin by watching movies in multiple ways – binging without control, idolatry and breach of conscience.
Therefore, the point remains that you can preach about anything under the sun, and people can misuse it. So, what do you do?
What do you do when you have a diverse audience? Of strong and weaker brothers, of the mature and the immature, of older and younger people.
I will give you three pointers on how I approach this.
i. I do not preach for the lowest common denominator.
ii. I do not preach for the highest common factor.
iii. And that leaves the general average of the adults in this room. So, here is my exhortation to most of you.
You are not children. And you shouldn’t be receiving any of this with childish thinking. 1 Corinthians 14:20
1 Corinthians 14:20 ESV
20 Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
And parents, it is your adult maturity that must nurture and train your children in the hearing of every sermon.
Because, no matter how much you try to qualify and justify the truth and safeguard people from error, the indulgent or the ignorant will always devise a method to err. It is the innate talent of the flesh.
Whether genuinely or negligently, we are prone to err.
Exegesis
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.’
In this round of woes, we have Jesus addressing the subject of oaths. And we know from the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus taught us saying,
Matthew 5:33–37 ESV
33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.
And we read in James 5:12
James 5:12 ESV
12 But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.
Now, the first question is if the New Testament prohibits us from taking an oath. These verses from Matthew and James seem to suggest that, so maybe we should hang our coats and call it a day.
Well, it’s not that simple. One reason is that oaths taken in the name of the Lord are a provision that the Lord himself instituted. Do you know that God has vowed by his name? The Bible is full of oaths or vows.
Numbers 30:2 ESV
2 If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.
Deuteronomy 23:21 ESV
21 “If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin.
Ecclesiastes 5:4–5 ESV
4 When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.
Leviticus 19:12 ESV
12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
Making oaths or vows were a normative provision in the Old Testament.
Definitions
This leads us to ask the question then – ‘What is a vow or an oath?’
The author of Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 6:16
Hebrews 6:16 ESV
16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.
An oath was a way for people to bind themselves to their word till it was fulfilled. And for that they invoked the name of something greater than themselves.
And so when they would invoke the name of the Lord when making an oath, it was the highest form of seriousness conveyed and the Lord would require that of him by law.
What about the NT?
Now, some might argue that making oaths was a provision of the Old Testament and is no longer applicable in the NT since Jesus now forbids it.
But that is not true either. Since Paul in several places invokes the presence of God or the witness of the Holy Spirit as a way to justify his authority.
Romans 9:1 ESV
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—
2 Corinthians 1:23 ESV
23 But I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth.
Or when Jesus in multiple places says, ‘Truly, truly…’ Why would Jesus say that? Is it because the statements that follow this phrase are more true than his other statements? John MacArthur talks about Jesus’ use of the phrase ‘truly, truly’ as a form of vow or oath.
Though all of Jesus’s words are equally true and abiding, the oaths help add emphasis and assurance to the listener.
And above all this stands the fact that God himself is an oath maker.
Hebrews 6:13–18 ESV
13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
- Did you catch that? God desired to show more convincingly the unchangeable character of his purpose to the heirs and so for their sake, he guaranteed it with an oath.
Acts 2:30 ESV
30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne,
Therefore, a biblical survey on the subject of oaths and vows reveals the righteous use and purpose of it as a provision that God has given.
Then, why do Jesus and James ask us not to make vows? We studied this passage in Matthew 5 in 2020, and that sermon on ‘Oaths’ is available on our YouTube channel if you want to listen to it.
But the summary of what Jesus and James appear to be addressing is the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Scribes. You see, these Jewish leaders weren’t teaching the congregation all the vile and deplorable doctrines.
No, the issue here is hypocrisy. The issue here is that they teach some truth in such a way as to hide their lies behind it.
They forbid murder to hide hatred toward their brother behind it. They forbid adultery to hide lusting after a woman behind it.
Our sinful nature has mastered the art of using truth as a disguise for lies. It’s like using a fancy curtain to cover a messy room or a fake plant to hide the fact that you can’t keep anything alive.
That winsome smile that covers bitterness or handshakes that are a covert art at backstabbing.
We pray publicly to cover the lack of it privately. We make sure our humility is noticed so that we may be praised for it.
I could keep going on.
Therefore, the hypocrisy of the Pharisees could be seen in the fact that they emphasised oath-keeping to excuse themselves from not keeping their word as long as it was not a vow.
Given this context, when Jesus says in Matthew 5:37
Matthew 5:37 ESV
37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.
He is drawing emphasis on the fact that God holds men accountable for every loose word and not just vows, just as hating your brother is akin to murder or lusting after a woman in the mind is the adultery of the heart.
Jesus and James are not saying that as long as you don’t make vows you don’t have to take your words seriously. No, they’re meaning it the other way around. That you don’t have to make these hypocritical oaths since your regular ‘yes’ and ‘no’ will be judged.
Back to Exegesis
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.’
We see here in this passage how far their hypocrisy goes. Do you see their nuancing of oathkeeping?
If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing! If anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.
By doing this, they are twisting the law in order to suit their hypocrisies. This is what the hypocrite does to biblical doctrine.
Legalism is not the heresy of those prone to be more biblical. It is the heresy of the hypocrite. When I see a legalist, I’m keen to see what lies behind the legalism.
Matthew 23:17 ESV
17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?
The danger of hypocrisy is not just in the fact that they twist doctrine, but in the fact that that twisting often compromises the more important matters of the law. More of this we will see in the next sermon.
Here by emphasising the gold in the temple, they were disregarding what was greater, the temple.
Matthew 23:18–19 ESV
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?
The same goes for the altar and the gift that is offered on the altar.
By twisting emphasis their teaching was not sanctifying, but a sacrilege.
Matthew 23:20–22 ESV
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.
So, if you’re going to make a vow, make it properly. Get your doctrine straight and keep it all the way. And know that God holds all your words accountable.
The Satire
Thrice Jesus calls them names!
You blind guides, blind fools and blind men!
And each of these phrases mocked these self-appointed Jewish leaders.
- A blind guide is an oxymoron. A guide is meant to show you the way and not only show you the way but to teach and explain the way to you as well.
A blind guide can do none of these. - Blind fools. Now here we’re getting really serious.
Did not Jesus say in Matthew 5:22
Matthew 5:22 ESV
22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
Uh-oh! Now what do we do? Did Jesus sin by calling the Pharisees fools?
You see, there is such a thing as ungodly cursing and godly cursing.
There is such a thing as ungodly vulgarity and godly vulgarity.
There is such a thing as ungodly vows and godly vows.
There is such a thing as ungodly anger and godly anger.
And there is such a thing as ungodly name-calling and godly name-calling.
Jesus isn’t contradicting himself or sinning. Calling the religious leaders of the time ‘fools’ was the righteous thing to do because that’s what they were.
This is not the murderer’s selfish hatred for his brother where out of his rage he calls him ‘fool’.
- Blind men – From guides to fools, now just as ordinary men – they are blind through and through.
Conclusion
The use of oaths is not a way for us to counteract the lack of trustworthiness in our regular words. It is a way of heightened emphasis that is meant to be used by the trustworthy man, who when he makes an oath, seals the listener’s assurance.
And going in order as we see it here in Matthew 23, hypocrisy affects our evangelism, in the way we convert people to our hypocrisy and now we see that it affects our vows.
A hypocrite is not a keeper of his word. He loiters on the edges of doctrinal plausibility to find glorious excuses to hide his sin.
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
