Expert: Marilyn - 1/15/2005

Question
Marilyn
  In the past you have helped me and I hope that you can help me again.
  During the time of Christ, here on earth.  All times are his, even today.  Anyway, during those biblical times, Jesus often spoke of the wrongful ways of the high priest. Could you help me out and find some of the scriptures in the new testament that state the wrongful ways of the priest.
  Once again thank you for your kindness in my bible studies.
                   Fred

Answer
Hi Fred;

Are you referring to the Pharisees?  Jesus had harsh words for them, but little to say against the priests per se.  My NIV exhaustive concordance doesn't list "priest" in conjunction with Jesus speaking of their "wrongful ways."  The word “priest” is mentioned in the following Gospel passages:  Matthew 1:44, 26:3, 51, 57, 58, 62, 63, 65; Mark 1:44; 2:26; 14:47, 53, 54, 60, 61, 63, 66; Luke 1:5,8; 5:14; 10:31; 22:50; 22:54; John 11:49; 51; 18:13, 15, 16, 19, 22, 24.  (I hope I got all those number right!)

Jesus' first denunciation of the Pharisees is found in Matthew 23:13-36.  He makes the following assertions regarding these "teachers of the Law:"

1)  "...you shut the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces.  You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to...,” verses 13 & 14.
    The "Kingdom of Heaven" has for its object the restoration of the divine authority in the earth, which may be regarded as a revolted province of the great Kingdom of God.  The expression "Kingdom of Heaven" is found only in Matthew and refers to the rule of Heaven, that is the rule of the God of Heaven over the earth (Daniel 2:44; 4:25,32).  The Kingdom of Heaven is similar in many respects to the Kingdom of God; the Kingdom of Heaven includes only men on earth, excluding angels and other creatures.  The Kingdom of Heaven includes those designated as "wheat and tares," the latter of which are cast out of the Kingdom (Matthew 13:41), and is compared to a net containing both the good and bad fish which are later separated (Matthew13:47).
    The Kingdom of Heaven is revealed in three aspects in Matthew:  1) "near" (Matthew 4:17), the Kingdom is offered in the Person of the King, of whom John the Baptist is the forerunner (Matthew 3:1).  2) "fulfilled" in the present age, the Kingdom of Heaven is presented in seven "secrets" (Matthew 13), revealing the character of the rule of Heaven over the earth between the first and second comings of the Lord.  3) fulfilled in the future after the Second Coming of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven in the millennial kingdom as predicted by Daniel (Daniel 2:34-36, 44-45) and covenanted to David (2 Samuel 7:12-16).  The millennial form of the Kingdom of Heaven is wholly future and will be set up after the return of the King in glory (Matthew 24:29-25:47; Acts 15:14-17.
    The word “hypocrite” is the same word in Greek which means “actor.”  Jesus is calling these men “actors,” pretenders to righteousness who present themselves to the public as “teachers of the Law.”  Here Jesus says the Pharisees make it impossible for God to rule on the earth and while they don't want to be subject to God's rule themselves, they are actively working to prevent those who do from experiencing it!

2) Some manuscripts add:  “…You devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers.  Therefore you will be punished more severely…”

3)  "...You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are...,” verse 15.
    Diligently seeking converts they indoctrinate the person with the same judgmental, anal piety they practice so that the person, because he once was genuinely, sincerely interested in becoming a child of God, is twice as awful as they are.

4)  "Woe to you, blind guides!  You say, ‘If anyone swears by temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath…,”verse 16.  Jesus continues in this vein with a discussion about which is greater, “the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred.”  The discussion expands to include the altar and the offering upon it and concludes with this assertion:  “Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.  And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the One who dwells in it.  And he who swears by Heaven swears by God's throne and by the One who sits on it.”
    If you have children you've run into this legalistic tendency to split hairs, “I didn't hit him,” as an excuse to avoid correction because you didn't exactly specify, precisely the action the child committed.  You might say, “Ok, then don't slap your brother…” and then get ontop the child for his legalism.  The Pharisees are engaging in the same hair splitting here.

5)   “…you give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin.  But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.  You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former.  You blind guides!  You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel…” verses 23 & 24
    The Pharisees diligently gave 1/10th of everything.  Jesus uses the example of giving a tenth of their spices since the spices in the home are probably the tiniest, most “trite” objects a person could possibly own.  The point is pressed on that the Pharisees make a fine show of righteousness while practicing nothing of what it truly means to be a child of God.
    This passage goes on in a similar vein and I think you begin to get the picture.  The Pharisees were in love with the law because it gave them power to interpret and dictate it over others.  They were not in love with God!  Jesus called them out for it and denounced them very severely.

Passages that mention Pharisees or cover the wickedness of the Pharisees include:  Matthew 3:7-10; 5:17-20 (about how we cannot enter Heaven through our own righteousness); 9:10-15, 27- 34; 12:1-14; 15:1-20; 16:1-12; 19:1-12; 21:23-46; 27:62-66; Mark 2:1-27; 3:1-6; 7:1-23; 8:11-21; 10:1-12; 12:13-40; Luke 5:17-34; 7:29-50; 11:15-54; 12:1-15; 13:31-35; 14:1-6; 15:1-32; 16:1-31; 17:20 & 21; 18:9-14; 19:28-40; John 1:24-27; 3:1-21; 4:1-3; 7:32-36; 8:2-59; 9:1-41; 11:45-57; 12:12-19; 12:42; 18:2-11

My Vine's Dictionary has this to say about Pharisees:
“…pharisaios, from an Aramaic word peras, found in Daniel 5:28, signifying "to separate," owing to a different manner of life from that of the general public.  The "Pharisees" and Sadducees appear as distinct parties in the latter half of the 2nd century B.C., though they represent tendencies traceable much earlier in Jewish history, tendencies which became pronounced after the return from Babylon (537 B.C.).  The immediate progenitors of the two parties were, respectively, the Hasidaceans and the Hellenizers; the latter, the antecedents of the Sadducees, aimed at removing Judaism from its narrowness and sharing in the advantages of Greek life and culture.  The Hasidaeans, a transcription of the Hebrew chasidim, i.e. "pious ones," were a society of men zealous for religion, who acted under the guidance of the scribes, in opposition to the godless Hellenizing party; they scrupled to oppose the legitimate high priest even when he was on the Greek side.  Thus the Hellenizers were a political sect, while the Hasidaeans, whose fundamental principle was complete separation from non-Jewish elements, were the strictly legal party among the Jews, and were ultimately the more popular and influential party.  In their zeal for the Law they almost deified it and their attitude became merely external, formal, and mechanical.  They laid stress, not upon righteousness of an action, but upon its formal correctness.  Consequently their opposition to Christ was inevitable; His manner of life and teaching was essentially a condemnation of theirs; hence his denunciation of them, c.g., Matthew 6:2, 5, 16; 15:7 and chapter 23.
    "While Jews continued to be divided into these two parties, the spread of the testimony of the Gospel must have produced what in the public eye seemed to be a new sect, and in the extensive development which took place at Antioch, Acts 11:19-26, the name "Christians" seems to have become a popular term applied to the disciples as a sect, the primary cause, however, being their witness to Christ.  The opposition of both "Pharisees" and Sadducees (still mutually antagonistic, Acts 23:6-10) against the new "sect" continued unabated during apostolic times.”

Hope you're doing great and I'm glad to hear from you again.

May God bless you richly,

Marilyn