by
Keith Hunt
A certain teaching is going about from those who have an axe to
grind for their particular religious life style and/or feast
observance.
I feel it is time to stop their mouths from leading people astray
and into confusion.
The false teaching that is being preached is that JESUS WAS AN
ORTHODOX JEW who taught that we should follow and obey the
religious instructions of the PHARISEES. This teaching includes
the idea that Paul the apostle was a good practicing Pharisee who
would have then observed the Passover on the 15th of Abib or
Nisan and Pentecost on Sivan the 6th.
I have been sent an article which title reads "YESHUA WAS AN
ORTHODOX JEW" and immediately quotes Mat.23:1-3. The article
starts out this way:
"Most people today, when they read this scripture, they fail
to realize the full impact of what is written. Yeshua was
actually preaching to his disciples that he wanted them to
obey the religious instructions and laws which the Pharisees
taught. Just because there were SOME Pharisees who abused
their positions as leaders does not mean that the Pharisees
as a sect were wrong in their teachings. Nor does it dismiss
that Yeshua clearly said to OBSERVE AND DO WHATEVER THEY
SAY. Yeshua was not giving a bad piece of advice here when
he said to follow the Pharisees' teaching: he was giving the
conditions that each person must meet in order to keep his
words and be his disciples."(Emphasis theirs).
A few sentences later the article says:
"Neither were the Pharisees unrighteous people. They were as
Yeshua said, the ones who sat in Moses' seat. They had the
right teaching on the law of Moses, and were biblically
correct in their religious beliefs, practices, and
teachings. In fact, even Yeshua HIMSELF WAS A PHARISEE..."
(Emphasis mine).
If at this point if you should shout "NO WAY WAS JESUS A
PHARISEE" - the article quickly calls you anti-Semitic and a
person who hates the Jews:
"What people have done down through time is misunderstood
and thought that Yeshua did not like the Pharisees or their
religion. This attitude, however, is merely another form of
anti-Semitism. People who go around putting down the
Pharisees and hide behind Yeshua to do it are only doing so
because they hate the Jews."
To try to prove that Jesus was a Pharisee the article eliminates
Jesus as a Sadducee, Essene, or a Zealot by the things they
taught and did. And because Jesus agreed with certain things that
the Pharisees taught(like a resurrection) they conclude "....we
see that Yeshua was PERFECTLY in unity with them" (emphasis
mine).
They quote Luke 13:31 to try and prove Jesus was a Pharisee
because certain Pharisees warned Him that Herod was out to kill
Him. They say, "This shows that Yeshua was a Pharisee Himself,
for when we understand how the Pharisees thought and lived their
lives, it becomes evident that Yeshua was a Pharisee." They try
to give you other verses to prove that Jesus was a Pharisee WHILE
completely ignoring OTHER verses that would contradict their
theory. The article is full of "tunnel vision" - reading the
Bible with blinkers over the eyes as some horses must do while
racing so they will not see all around them. Because they THINK
that Pharisee were "separated ones" who would not be seen dead
with a non Pharisee, and as they did talk to Jesus, so Jesus must
have been a Pharisee. With this reasoning I guess we must believe
that John the Baptist was a Pharisee also because many of the
Pharisees came to his baptisms (Mat.3:1-7). And I guess by the
same reasoning the Sadducees who came with the Pharisees to
John's baptisms were not really Sadducees at all but Pharisees in
pretence as Sadducees.
In another bit of poor research or no research at all they claim,
"The Pharisees continued to exist after the destruction of the
Temple and Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and were eventually the ONLY
surviving Jewish sect." (emphasis theirs). I guess they have
never heard of the Karite Jewish sect still in full existence.
They are correct when they show that Pharisaism evolved into
"what is known today as Orthodox Judaism."
Now listen to this from their so called NT deductions, "The
Orthodox of today even still call themselves Hasidim, as did the
Pharisees, just before the Maccabees. So, to say that Yeshua was
a Pharisee, is the same as saying that he was a Hasidic Jew, or
Orthodox Jew. He lived an Orthodox Jewish life. He commanded his
disciples to live an Orthodox Jewish life, and that command still
holds for us today."
The writer/s of this article sees that many believing Jews were
ZEALOUS OF THE LAW(Acts 21:20) and so conclude "....these were
Pharisees, as were all the followers of Yeshua and the apostles
throughout their entire generations - Orthodox Jews."
Because they correctly understand that it was the Pharisees who
established and controlled synagogue worship during Jesus' time
leads them to dogmatically claim, "The fact that Yeshua, Paul,
and the apostles attended Synagogue services shows that they were
Pharisees, or Orthodox."
As we get to the end of this article we really begin to see the
CULTIC teaching of this particular group of Jews. They state:
"This brings us to development of Orthodox Judaism. As time went
on, the Pharisees became known as Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Judaism
was the only sect of Judaism until more recent centuries, when
Reform and Conservative Judaism came about .... The apostles were
those who had the full truth of Yahweh in their day, but even
they did not cease to call themselves Pharisees."
Now I can only find the apostle Paul calling himself a Pharisee,
yet they claim the apostleS called themselveS Pharisees.
The article ends with these words: "The Apostles were ORTHODOX
MESSIANIC JEWS, and likewise must Yeshua's true followers still
be today: ORTHODOX MESSIANIC JEWS'" (emphasis mine and theirs).
There you have it all summed up - if you are not an ORTHODOX
Messianic Jew - one of them, a part of their group - you are not
a true follower of Jesus.
Most scholars and editors of religious magazines would never GIVE
THE TIME OF DAY to such articles from obvious religious fanatical
cults and sects who believe they and they alone are the true
followers of Jesus. There are many such groups out there who
claim to be the "only ones" of Christ. I'm sure Jim Jones and his
elite thought the same about 15 years ago and the recent Wacko
group in Waco Texas believed that they and their followers were
the special "unique" ones of God, the true followers of Jesus.
Well I am giving the time of day to answer these deceivers
BECAUSE a man that many of you are familiar with and that many of
you receive literature from, is in MANY WAYS saying the same
thing as these Orthodox Messianic Jews are saying.
His name - WILLIAM F. DANKENBRING!!
William D. has written an article called "WAS THE APOSTLE PAUL A
LIAR:" He tries to show his readers that because Paul at one time
did say "I am Pharisee" while being a Christian, this gives proof
that Paul observed a Passover and a Sivan 6th Pentecost, which
the Pharisees practiced.
I shall go through the whole two page article later, dissecting
it bit by bit and so showing you the clever deceitfulness of this
man's writings, but at this time I will give you some of his
words:
"The apostle Paul, of course, was a Pharisee. Did the
apostle Paul deliberately 'lie,'and bear false witness
..... As a strict Pharisee, all his life he observed
Pentecost on the same day as all the Pharisees did - Sivan
6... Paul, who himself was a Pharisee, and who was brought
up and taught at the feet of the leading Pharisee of his
day, Gamaliel. Paul says, 'I am verily a man which am a
Jew, born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, yet brought up in
this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and TAUGHT according to
the PERFECT MANNER OF THE LAW of the fathers'(Acts 22:3). Do
we dare believe that the apostle Paul was a LIAR?"
Dankenbring quotes Paul's words in Philippians 3:4-6 and
emphasizes the last part this way: "....AS TOUCHING THE LAW, A
PHARISEE; concerning zeal persecuting the church; TOUCHING THE
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS IN THE LAW, BLAMELESS."
Then he goes on to say, "But how could this be? If the Pharisees
were IN ERROR on Pentecost and its calculation, then Paul could
not have been 'blameless' as concerns the Law of God, the divine
instructions for Pentecost!"
The last paragraph of W.F.D. contains these words: "Jesus Christ
himself stated plainly, 'the scribes and Pharisees SIT IN MOSES'
SEAT: All therefore whatsoever THEY(not the Sadducees) bid you
observe, that observe and do! (Mat 23:2-3). The Pharisees were
the true authorities for interpreting the laws of God....."
(emphasis his).
It is now time to answer this subject in full detail. I shall
begin with giving the reader a detailed expose concerning the
basic beliefs and practices of the Sadducees and Pharisees.
LIFE AND TIMES OF JESUS THE MESSIAH - by Alfred Edersheim
FROM JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION. (Starting on page
314).
QUOTE:
The fundamental dogmatic differences between the Pharisees and
Sadducces concerned: the rule of faith and practice; the 'after
death; the existence of angels and spirits; and free will and
predestination.
In regard to the first of these points, it has already been
stated that the Sadducces did not lay down the principle of
absolute rejection of all traditions as such, but that they were
opposed to traditionalism as represented and carried out by the
Pharisees. When put down by sheer weight of authority, they would
probably carry the controversy further, and retort on their
opponents by an appeal to Scripture as against their traditions,
perhaps ultimately even by an attack of traditionalism; but
always as represented by the Pharisees.
A careful examination of the statements of Josephus on this
subject will show that they convey no more than this. The
Pharisaic view of this aspect of the controversy appears,
perhaps, most satisfactorily, because indirectly, in certain
sayings of the Mishnah, which attribute all national calamities
to those persons, whom they adjudge to eternal perdition, who
interpret Scripture 'not as does the Halakhah,' or established
Pharisaic rule. In this respect, then, the commonly received idea
concerning the Pharisees and Sadducces will require to be
seriously modified.
As regards the practice of the Pharisees as distinguished from
that of the Sadducees, we may safely treat the statements of
Josephus as the exaggerated representations of a partisan, who
wishes to place his party in the best light. It is, indeed, true
that the Pharisees, 'interpreting the legal ordinances with
rigour,' imposed on themselves the necessity of much self-denial,
especially in regard to food, but that their practice was under
the guidance of 'reason' as Josephus asserts; is one of those
bold mis-statements with which he has too often to be credited.
His vindication of their special reverence for age and authority
must refer to the honours paid by the party to 'the Elders,' not
to the old. And that there was sufficient ground for Sudducean
opposition to Pharisaic traditionalism, alike ill principle and
in practice, will appear from the following quotation, to which
we add, by way of explanation, that the wearing of phylacteries
was deemed by that party of Scriptural obligation, and that the
phylactery for the head was to consist (according to tradition)
of four compartments. 'Against the words of the Scribes is more
punishable than against the words of Scripture. He who says, No
phylacteries, so as to transgress the words of Scripture, is not
guilty(free); five compartments - to add to the words of the
Scribes - he is guilty.'
The second doctrinal difference between Pharisees and Sadducces
concerned the 'after death.' According to the New Testament,
the Sadducces denied the resurrection of the dead, while
Josephus, going further, imputes to them denial of reward or
punishment after death, and even the doctrine that the soul
perishes with the body.
The latter statement may be dismissed as among those inferences
which theological controversialists are too fond of imputing to
their opponents. This is fully borne out by the account of a
later work, to the effect, that by successive misunderstandings
of the saying of Antigonus of Socho, that men were to serve God
without regard to reward, his later pupils had arrived at the
inference that there was no outer world - which, however, might
only refer to the Pharisaic ideal of 'the world to come,' not to
the denial of the immortality of the soul - and no resurrection
of the dead.
We may therefore credit Josephus with merely reporting the common
inference of his party. But it is otherwise in regard to their
denial of the resurrection of the dead. Not only Josephus, but
the New Testament and Rabbinic writings attest this.
The Mishnah expressly states that the formula 'from age to age,'
or rather 'from world to world,' had been introduced as a protest
against the opposite theory; while the Talmud, which records
disputations between Gamaliel and the Sadducces on the subject of
the resurrection, expressly imputes the denial of this doctrine
to the 'Scribes of the Sadducees.'
In fairness it is perhaps only right to add that, in the
discussion, the Sadducees seem only to have actually denied that
there was proof for this doctrine in the Pentateuch, and that
they ultimately professed themselves convinced by the reasoning
of Gamaliel. Still the concurrent testimony of the New Testament
and of Josephus leaves no doubt, that in this instance their
views had not been misrepresented. Whether or not their
opposition to the doctrine of the Resurrection arose in the first
instance from, or was prompted by, Rationalistic views, which
they endeavoured to support by an appeal to the letter of the
Pentateuch, as the source of traditionalism, it deserves notice
that, in His controversy with the Sadducees Christ appealed to
the Pentateuch in proof of His teaching.
Connected with this was the equally Rationalistic opposition to
belief in Angels and Spirits. It is only mentioned in the New
Testament, but seems almost to follow as a corollary.
Remembering what the Jewish Angelology was, one can scarcely
wonder that, in controversy the Sadducees should have been led to
the opposite extreme.
The last dogmatic difference between the two 'sects' concerned
that problem which has at all times engaged religious thinkers:
man's free will and God's pre-ordination or rather their
compatibility.
Josephus - or the reviser whom he employed - indeed, uses the
purely heathen expression 'fate' ..... to designate the Jewish
idea of the pre-ordination of God. But, properly understood, the
real difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees seems to have
amounted to this: that the former accentuated God's
pre-ordination, the latter man's free will; and that, while the
Pharisees admitted only a partial influence of the human element
on what happened, or the co-operation of the human with the
Divine, the Sadducces denied all absolute pre-ordination, and
made man's choice of evil or good, with its consequences of
misery or happiness, to depend entirely on the exercise of free
will and self-determination. And in this, like many opponents of
'Predestinarianism,' they seem to have started from the
principle, that it was impossible for God 'either to commit or to
foresee [in the sense of fore-ordaining] anythingevil.'
The mutual misunderstanding here was that common in all such
controversies. Although Josephus writes as if, according to the
Pharisees, the chief part in every good action depended upon fate
[pre-ordination] rather than on man's doing, yet in another place
he disclaims for them the notion that the will of man destitute
of spontaneous activity, and speaks somewhat confusedly - for he
is by no means a good reasoner - of 'a mixture' of the Divine and
human elements, in which the human will, with its sequence of
virtue or wickedness, is subject to the will of fate.....
But something more will have to be said as illustrative of
Pharisaic teaching on this subject. No one who has entered into
the spirit of the Old Testament can doubt that its outcome was
faith, in its twofold aspect of acknowledgment of the absolute
rule, and simple submission to the will of God. What
distinguished this so widely from fatalism was what may be termed
Jehorahism - that is, the moral element in its thoughts of God,
and that He was ever presented as in paternal relationship to
men. But the Pharisees carried their accentuation of the Divine
to the verge of fatalism. Even the idea that God had created man
with two impulses, the one to good, the other to evil; and that
the latter was absolutely necessary for the continuance of this
world, would in some measure trace the causation of moral evil to
the Divine Being. The absolute and unalterable pre-ordination of
every event, to its minutest details, is frequently insisted
upon. Adam had been shown all the generations that were to spring
from him. Every incident in the history of Israel had been
foreordained, and the actors in it - for good or for evil - were
only instruments for carrying out the Divine Will.....
Similarly was it in regard to Solomon, to Esther, to
Nebuchadnezzar, and others. Nay, it was because man was
predestined to die that the serpent came to seduce our first
parents. And as regarded the history or each individual: all that
concerned his mental and physical capacity, or that would betide
him; was prearranged. His name, place, position, circumstances,
the very name or her whom he was to wed, were proclaimed in
heaven, just as the hour of his death was foreordered. There
might be seven years of pestilence in the land, and yet no one
died before leis time. Even if man inflicted a cut on his finger,
he might be sure that this also had been preordered.....
We can well understand how the Sadducees would oppose notions
like these, and all such coarse expressions or fatalism. And it
is significant of the exaggeration of Josephus, that neither the
New Testament, nor Rabbinic writings, bring the charge of the
denial or God's provision against the Sadducees.
But there is another aspect of this question also. While the
Pharisees thus held the doctrine of absolute preordination, side
by side with it they were anxious to insist on man's freedom of
choice, his personal responsibility, and moral obligation.
Although every event depended upon God, whether a man served God
or not was entirely in his own choice. As a logical sequence or
this, fate had no influence as regarded Israel, since all
depended on prayer, repentance, and good works. Indeed, otherwise
that repentance, on which Rabbinism so largely insists, would
have had no meaning. Moreover, it seems as if it had been
intended to convey that, while our evil actions were entirely our
own choice, if a man sought to amend his ways, he would be helped
of God.....
The other differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees can be
easily and briefly summed up. They concern ceremonial, ritual,
and juridical questions. In regard to the first, the opposition
of the Sadducces to the excessive scruples of the Pharisees on
the subject of Levitical defilements led to frequent controversy.
Four points in dispute are mentioned, of which, however, three
read more like ironical comments than serious divergences. Thus,
the Sadducees taunted their opponents with their many
lustrations, including that of the Golden Candlestick in the
Temple. Two other similar instances are mentioned. By way of
guarding against the possibility of profanation, the Pharisees
enacted, that the touch of any thing sacred 'defiled' the hands.
The Sadducees, on the other hand, ridiculed the idea that the
Holy Scriptures 'defile' the hands, but not such a book as Homer.
In the same spirit, the Sadducees would ask the Pharisees how it
came, that water pouring from a clean into an unclean vessel did
not lose its purity and purifying power. If these represent no
serious controversies, on another ceremonial question there was
real difference, though its existence shows how far party-spirit
could lead the Pharisees. No ceremony was surrounded with greater
care to prevent defilement than that of preparing the ashes of
the Red Heifer.
What seen the original ordinance, directed that, for seven days
previous to the burning of the Red Heifer, the priest was to be
kept in separation in the Temple, sprinkled with the ashes of all
sin-offerings, and kept from the touch of his brother-priests,
with even greater rigour than the High-Priest in his preparation
for the Day of Atonement.
The Sadducees insisted that, as 'till sundown' was the rule in
all purification, the priest must be in cleanliness still then,
before burning the Red Heifer, But, apparently for the sake of
opposition, and in contravention to their own principles, the
Pharisees would naturally ' defile' the priest on his way to the
place of burning, and then immediately make him take a bath of
purification which had been prepared, so as to show that the
Sadducees were in error. In the same spirit, the Sadducees seem
to have prohibited the use of anything made from animals which
were either interdicted as food, or by reason of their not having
been properly slaughtered, while the Pharisees allowed it, and,
in the case of Levitically clean animals which had died or been
torn, even made their skin into parchment, which might be used
for sacred purposes.
These may seem trifling distinctions, but they sufficed to kindle
the passions. Even greater importance attached to differences on
ritual questions, although the controversy here was purely
theoretical. For,the Sadducees, when in office, always conformed
to the prevailing Pharisaic practices. Thus the Sadducees would
have interpreted Lev.xxiii. 11, 15, 16, as meaning that the
wave-sheaf (or, rather, the 'Omer') was to be offered on 'the
morrow after the weekly Sabbath' that is, on the Sunday in Easter
week - which would have brought the Feast of Pentecost always on
a Sunday; while the Pharisees understood the term 'Sabbath' of
the festive Paschal day.
Connected with this were disputes about the examination of the
witnesses who testified to the appearance of the new moon, and
whom the Pharisees accused of having been suborned by their
opponents.
The Sadducean objection to pouring the water of libation upon
the altar on the Feast of Tabernacles, led to riot and bloody
reprisals on the only occasion on which it seems to have been
carried into practice. Similarly, the Sadducees objected to the
beating off the willow-branches after the procession round the
altar on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, if it were a
Sabbath.....
END QUOTE
In Jewish and other writings we also discover that the Pharisees
not only believed in the IMMORTAL SOUL teaching but also in the
MIGRATION of SOULS. They also believed that fallen angels in
Genesis 6 had sex with physical women.
The Pharisees had TWO main Theological teaching schools, one the
school of HILLEL AND THE OTHER OF SHAMMAI.
Concerning the matter of DIVORCE and Deuteronomy 24;1-2, the
school SHAMMAI maintained that a man could not legally put away
his wife,except for WHOREDOM. The school of HILLEL taught that a
man might put away his wife for a multitude of other causes.
We shall for interest, record here the case of JOSEPHUS (the
Jewish Pharisee historian of the first century A.D.) as given by
Adam Clarke in his Bible commentary: " Josephus.... in HIS LIFE,
tells us, with the utmost: coolness and indifference, 'About this
time I put away my wife, WHO HAD BORNE ME THREE CHILDREN, not
being pleased with her manners."'(Emphasis is Clarke's).
Obviously Josephus was of the school of Hillel, as was Rabbi
Akiba when he stated:
"If any man saw a woman handsomer than his
wife, he might: put her away; because it is said in the law,
IF SHE FIND NOT FAVOR IN HIS EYES."
The school of Shammai would vigorously disagree with the school
of Hillel on the topic of Divorce. The school of Hillel was the
most LIBERAL and so the most popular with those who followed the
Pharisees.
What I want you to remember is that the Pharisees DID NOT AGREE
AMONG THEMSELVES ON ALL POINTS OF BIBLICAL DOCTRINE. And if this
was the case as it indeed was, surely it is a LIE for anyone to
tell you that they, the Pharisees, were the teachers of the
PERFECT LAW of God, when they OFTEN DISAGREED among themselves on
certain points of the law.
As you read through the writings of Josephus(the Jewish Pharisee
of the first century A.D.) you come across other teachings of at
least some of the Pharisees, teachings that are somewhat
"strange" to say the least, such as who the "sons of God" were
that married the daughters of men mentioned in Genesis 6, as I've
already mentioned. According to Josephus the Pharisee, these sons
of God were ANGELS that co-habited with women and produced
giants.
I knew that the Jehovah Witnesses of the 20th century taught
this bazaar idea of Angels marrying women, but I did not
know(until I read it in Josephus) the same idea was taught by
many of the Pharisees.
As I have previously said, Dankenbring has become a master at
TUNNEL vision. He zeros in on a particular verse, ignores the
context, ignores other verses of the Bible that would shed light
on a particular statement of Paul, and then tells you what Paul
is saying(supposedly) even if it CONTRADICTS other statements by
Paul or another verse of God's word.
William D. has forgotten(conveniently it would seem) a number of
Bible study rules that are important if you want to find the
truth of the matter on any Scriptural topic. One rule is that
when studying Paul's writings remember, as Peter was inspired to
say, some things of Paul are HARD to UNDERSTAND, and those who
are unlearned TWIST to their own destruction. Another rule to
correctly divide the word of truth, is to get all the verses on
any particular matter BEFORE coming to a conclusion.
Later we shall look at the many NT verses that talk about the
PHARISEES and see if they were truly the Jewish sect of religion
that understood and practiced the PERFECT law OF GOD.
I suggest you have a little study yourself some time and with a
Bible concordance look up all the Scriptures in the NT where the
word Pharisee appears. Read the context of each and see if you
come to the conclusion that the Pharisee sect was the true Church
of God at the time of Christ and during the days of the Apostles.
Here is Dankenbring, a Sabbath and Feasts of God observer, yet
ministers of the Catholic and Protestant faith understood the
truth of these statements of Paul better than he does. Maybe it
is because they have no particular PET DOCTRINE (like a 15th
Passover, Sivan the 6th for Pentecost) of the Pharisees to try
and uphold.
In passing let me say this.
It is a fact of history and knowledge that the Pharisees not only
believed in the RESURRECTION (as opposed to the Sadducees who did
not) but they also believed in the doctrine of the IMMORTALITY OF
THE SOUL and SOUL MIGRATION.
So if Paul was a practicing, believing Pharisee, if he had been
taught the perfect law OF GOD by the Pharisees, then Paul would
have believed and taught the "Immortal Soul" idea. And of course
many of the Catholic and Protestant ministers would say Paul DID
teach that the soul was immortal and went to heaven or hell at
death.
Maybe Dankenbring will come out with a paper showing the
Pharisees were correct in teaching the immortal soul idea. He
could take the many verses of the Bible and words of Paul and do
exactly what the Protestant minister Finis Dake did.. prove to
his readers that the soul is naturally immortal and goes to
heaven or hell at death.
Finis Dake(and others before and after) broke all the rules of
Bible study on the "immortal soul" teaching and also had TUNNEL
VISION just like Mr.D. He ignored the context many times and
NEVER once quoted to his readers the plain simple, easy to
understand verses about DEATH being a SLEEP and a person neither
acting, thinking, remembering, praising God in death. They are
there, and MANY of them, IF you are willing to read the WHOLE
Bible.
It's now time to see what some of the Protestant ministers had to
say about ACTS 22:3.
...............
TO BE CONTINUED
Jesus and Paul - Pharisees? #2
Some say they were!
by
Keith Hunt
We continue here with the expounding of the pertinent passages in
Acts and some of Paul, that certain sects of the Messianic Jewish
movement and William Dankenbring use to try and prove Jesus
and/or Paul were Pharisees, and hence we should observe the
teachings and practices of the Pharisee theology. First the
section of Acts 22:3 and then Acts 23: 6,7,8.
GILES EXPOSITOR
It follows, and taught according to the perfect law of the
fathers; not the law which the Jewish fathers received from
Moses, though Paul was instructed in this, but in the oral law,
the Misna, or traditions of the elders, in which he greatly
profited, and exceeded others, Gal.i.14. And was zealous towards
God; or a zealot of God; one of those who were called Kanaim, or
zealots; who in their great zeal for the glory of God, took away
the lives of men, when they found them guilty of what they judged
a capital crime; see Matt.x.4. John xvi. The Vulgate Latin
version reads, "zealous of the law;" both written and oral, the
law of Moses, and the traditions of the fathers: as ye all are
this day: having a zeal for God, and the law, but not according
to knowledge.
BARNES' NOTES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT
...acquainted with the nature of the law. According to the
perfect manner..... By strict diligence, or exact care; or in
the utmost rigour and severity of that instruction. No pains were
SPARED to make him understand and practise the law of Moses. The
law of the fathers. The law of our fathers; i.e., the law which
they received and handed down to us. Paul was a Pharisee; and the
law in which he had been taught was not only the written law of
Moses, but the traditional law which had been handed down from
former times. Note, Matt. iii. 6. And was zealous towards God.
Gal.1:14. He had a constant burning seal for God and his law,
which was expressed not only by scrupulous adherence to its
forma, but by persecuting all who opposed it,verse, 4.5.
ADAM CLARKE
According to the perfect manner. That is, according to that
strict interpretation of the law, and especially the traditions
of the elders, for which the Pharisees were remarkable. That it
is Pharisaism that the apostle has in view, when he says he was
taught according to, ..... the most exact manner, is evident; and
hence, in chap. xxvi.5, he calls Pharisaism ..... the most exact
system; and, under it, he was zealous towards God; scrupulously
exact in every part of his duty, accompanying this with reverence
to the supreme Being, and deep concern for his honour and glory.
R.C.H.LENSKY COMMENTARY
Acts 22:2, 3
3) I - I am a man, a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia but reared in
this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the
paternal law's exactitude, being a zealot for God even as you
your selves all are today; one who did persecute this Way to
death, binding and delivering into prisons, both men and women as
also the high priest is witness for me and all the eldership,
from whom also having received letters to the brethren I was
journeying to Damascus to bring also those who were there bound
to Jerusalem in order that they might be punished.
.... is emphatic: "I, as far as I am concerned"; and .... (not
the pleonastic ..... which is often used by Luke as in 16:37, and
in 21:39) makes the appositive substantive adjectival as in
10:28; 3:14; Luke 24:17 (B.-D. 242). The three perfect
participles refer to states; once born, reared, educated a man
remains thus. On Tarsus of Cilicia as Paul's birthplace see 9:11
and 21:39. His place of birth made him a Hellenist, but his
rearing and his education, both of which took place in Jerusalem,
were those of a Hebrew; on the difference see 6:1. Although born
abroad, Paul was reared "in this city," i. e., Jerusalem (26:4).
Only the fact is mentioned. At what age he was brought to
Jerusalem (the guesses vary between eight and fourteen), and with
whom he lived (a much older sister, 23:16?), are left to surmise.
We ought not confuse the second and the third partlciplee; the
one means "nourished up" and thus "reared" while the other means
"to train a child" and thus "to educate." "At the feet of
Gamaliel" is thus to be construed with the latter participle, for
it also precedes it for the sake of emphasis: by no less a person
than Gamaliel was Paul educated. This famous teacher scarcely
trained little boys; Paul means that, when he was of proper age,
he became a disciple of Gamaliel. See the remarks on 5:34. We see
how old the expression "at the feet" is. The disciples, of
course, sat cross-legged on the floor, their 'rabban' (a title
given only to Gamaliel and to six others; 'rabbi' is less, and
'rab' still less) sitting the same way on a platform. The Talmud
explains: "They are to dust themselves with the dust of his
feet."
Paul's having Gamaliel as a teacher already explains the kind of
an education he received, but he adds this fact because it is so
important for his present hearers: "according to the paternal
law's exactitude," ..... "received from one's father." Paul's
Jewish education was limited to the things handed down from the
Jewish fathers, and he received it in a form that was most exact
and accurate. The genitive alone is enough to make its governing
noun definite. No devout Jew in all Israel could have provided a
more satisfactory Jewish upbringing and education for his son
than that which Paul's father provided for him. Where Paul
obtained his knowledge of Greek poetry is another question.
The present participle adds what Paul thus turned out to be:
...... "a zealot for God" (objective genitive), compare 21:20;
and dramatically Paul adds: "even as you yourselves all are
today," referring to what they had just done to him when they
imagined that he had desecrated God's Temple. Paul refers to the
same thing mentioned in Rom.10:2. He is speaking subjectively and
now describes the zealot he was.
NOW FOR ACTS 23:6 AND WITH WHAT YOU'LL GET FROM THE FOLLOWING
COMMENTARIES BE READY FOR A FEW SURPRISES.
THE INTERPRETERS BIBLE
6 But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and
the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and
brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and
resurrection of the dead I am called in question.
7 And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the
Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided.
8 For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither
angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.
6. A Pharisee, a son of Pharisees: Cf. 26:5 and Phil. 3:5. As a
Christian, Paul can still claim to be a Pharisee (cf. 15:5 for
"believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees") and a
champion of the best traditions of Judaism - the best defense he
can make against the charge of subversive preaching (21:28). The
hope and the resurrection: This might be taken to refer to the
messianic hope and the resurrection which, according to the
Pharisees, was its condition. But the words in the Greek have no
definite article and are perhaps best taken as a single
expression equivalent to "the hope of the resurrection."
Similarly in 24:15 Paul speaks of "having a hope ... that there
will be a resurrection" (cf. also 26:6-8); and in 24:21 it is
simply "with respect to the resurrection" that Paul is on trial.
7. The assembly was divided: Josephus tells how once he escaped
from a mob by the same ruse of dividing "their opinions" (Life
139-44).
8. For the divergent views of the Pharisees and Sadducees on
eschatology see Mark 12:18 and parallels and Josephus, who says
that the Pharisees maintain that "every soul is imperishable, but
the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the
souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment." .....
ELLICOT COMMENTARY
I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. It is natural, from one
point of view, to dwell chiefly on the tact of the Apostle. He
seems to be acting, consciously or unconsciously, on the
principle divide et impera, to win over to his side a party who
would otherwise have been his enemies. With this there comes, it
may be, a half-doubt whether the policy thus adopted was
altogether truthful. Was St. Paul at that time really a Pharisee?
Was he not, as following in his Master's footsteps, the sworn foe
of Pharisaism? The answer to that question, which obviously ought
to be answered and not suppressed, is that all parties have their
good and bad sides, and that those whom the rank and file of a
party most revile may be the most effective witnesses for the
truths on which the existence of the party rests. The true
leaders of the Pharisees had given a prominence to the doctrine
of the Resurrection which it had never had before. They taught an
.... rather than a sacrificial religion. Many of then had been,
like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea, secret disciples of our
Lord. At this very time there were many avowed Pharisees among
the members of the Christian Church (chap. xv. 5). St.Paul,
therefore, could not be charged with any suppressio veri in
calling himself a Pharisee. It did not involve even a tacit
disclaimer of his faith in Christ. It was rather as though he
said, "I am one with you in all that is truest in your creed.
I invite you to listen and see whether what I now proclaim to you
is not the crown and completion of all your hopes and yearnings.
Is not the resurrection of Jesus the one thing needed for a proof
of that hope of the resurrection of the dead of which you and
your fathers have been witnesses?"
There arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
As a strategic act St. Paul's words had immediately the effect
which he desired. They prevented the hasty unanimous vote which
might otherwise have united the two parties, as they bad been
united in the case of Stephen, in the condemnation of the
blasphemer. What follows shows that it was not without results as
regards the higher aim. (8) The Sadducees say that there is no
resurrection. On the general teaching of the Sadducees, see Note
on Matt.xxii.23. Their denial of the existence of angels and
spirits seems at first inconsistent with the known fact that
they acknowledged, the divine authority of the Pentateuch, which
contains so many narratives of angelophanica, and were more
severe than others in their administration of the Law.....
BARNES' NOTES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT
That is, I was of thaT sect among the Jews. I was born a
Pharisee, and I ever continued while a Jew to be of that sect.
In the main he agreed with them still. He did not mean to deny
that he was a Christian, but that so far as the Pharisees
differed from the Sadducees, he was in the main with the former.
He agreed with them, not with the Sadducees, in regard to the
doctrine of the resurrection, and the existence of angels and
spirits. The son of a Pharisee. What was the name of his father
is not known. But the meaning is, simply, that he was entitled to
all the immunities and privileges of a Pharisee. He had from his
birth, belonged to that sect, nor had he ever departed from the
great cardinal doctrines which distinguished that sect - the
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Comp. Phil. 3:6. Of the
hope of the resurrection of the dead. That is, of the hope that
the dead will be raised. This is the real point of the
persecution and opposition to me. I am called as question. Gr.,
I am judged; that is, I am persecuted, or brought to trial.
Orobio charges this upon Paul as an artful manner of declining
persecution, unworthy the character of an upright and honest man.
Chubb, a British Deist of the seventeenth century, charges it
upon Paul as an act of gross " dissimulation, as designed to
conceal the true ground of all the troubles that he had brought
upon himself; and as designed to deceive and impose upon the
Jews."
He affirms also, that " St. Paul probably invented this pretended
charge a himself, to draw over a party of the unbelieving Jews
unto him." See Chubb's Posthumous Works, vol. ii. p. 238. Now, in
reply to this we may observe (l.) that there is not the least
evidence that Paul denied that he had been, or was then, a
Christian. An attempt to deny this, after all that they knew of
him, would have been vain, and there is not the slightest hint
that he attempted it. (2.) The doctrine of the resurrection of
the dead was the main and leading doctrine which he had insisted
on, and which had been to him the cause of much of his
persecution. See chap. xvii. 31,34; 1 Cor.xv.; Acts xiii.34;
xxvi. 6, 7, 48, 46. (3.) Paul defended this
by an argument which he deemed invincible, and which constituted,
in fact, the principal evidence of its truth - the fact that the
Lord Jesus had been raised. That fact had given demonstration to
the doctrine of the Pharisees, that the dead would rise. As Paul
had everywhere proclaimed the fact that Jesus had been raised up,
and as this had been the occasion of his being opposed, it was
true that he had been persecuted on account of that doctrine.
(4) The real ground of the opposition which the Saddueees made to
him, and of their opposition to his doctrine, was the additional
zeal with which he urged this doctrine, and the additional
argument which he brought for the resurrection of the dead.
Perhaps the cause of the opposition of this great party among the
Jews - the Sadducees - to Christianity, was the strong
confirmation which the resurrection of Christ gave to the
doctrine which they so much hated - the doctrine of the
resurrection of the dead. It thus gave a triumph to their
opponents among the Pharisees; and Paul, as a leading and zealous
advocate of that doctrine, would excite their special hatred.
(5.) All that Paul said, therefore, was strictly true. It was
because he advocated this doctrine that he was opposed. That
there were other causes of opposition to him might be true also;
but still this was the main and prominent cause of the
hostility.(6) With great propriety, therefor, he might address
the Pharisees, and say, "brethren, the great doctrine which has
distinguished you from the Sadducees is at stake. The great
doctrine which is at the foundation of all our hopes - the
resurrection of the dead - the doctrine of our fathers, of the
Scriptures, of our sect, is in danger. Of that doctrine I have
been the advocate. I have never denied it. I have endeavoured to
establish it, and have everywhere defended it, and; have devoted
myself to the work of putting it on an imperishable basis among
the Jews and the Gentiles. For my seal in that I have been
opposed. I have excited the ridicule of the Gentile, and the
hatred of the Sadducee. I have thus been persecuted and
arraigned; and for my seal in this, in urging the argument in
defence of it, which I have deemed most irrefragable - the
resurrection of the Messiah - I have been persecuted and
arraigned, and now cast myself on your protection against the mad
seal the enemies of the doctrine of our fathers." Not only,
therefore, was this an act of policy and prudence in Paul, but
what he affirmed was strictly true, and the effect was as he had
anticipated.
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Since Paul had always known that the Sanhedrin was made up of
both Sadducees and Pharisees, Luke's remark that is introduced
with ... must mean more than that Paul happened to think of these
two parties and with quick wit took advantage of that fact and
thus caused a division in the Sanhedrin. Something that is not
recorded by Luke but is contained in the participle ... etc., had
set the two parties against each other. This seems to be
substantiated by .... ... .. ..... Paul had to shout (descriptive
imperfect) at the top of his voice. The Sadducees and the
Pharisees were evidently engaged in a loud altercation, and Paul
was quite forgotten for the moment.
These points are clear; everything that goes beyond them is
guessing, some of it is unsatisfactory, for instance that the
altercation took place in regard to the high priest, and that the
Pharisees were rather pleased with Paul's sharp retort, or that
Paul's address, "men and brethren," was intended to ignore the
high priest in a pointed way. Regarding the latter, what about
the same address in v.1; and what about attributing such a low
motive to a man like Paul? Luke writes, "in the Sanhedrin," yet
some think that Paul was addressing only the Pharisees. The
entire Sanhedrin was to know that Paul was a Pharisee. The force
of the argument was this: a judicial body that was itself in
large part composed of Pharisees could certainly not find fault
with a man for being a Pharisee and holding to the main doctrinal
contention of Pharisaism. This feature of the argument would, of
course, have been just as strong if matters had been reversed,
i.e., if Paul had been a Sadducee. In either case the one party
would not, the other could not take exception.
"I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees," descended from Pharisee
ancestry, intends to say, "a genuine Pharisee." In this very
Sanhedrin Gamaliel had sat, a Pharisee, one of the great
ornaments of Judaism (5:34), under whom Paul himself had received
his education (22:3). If Paul had stopped with this, the casuists
might arise and charge him with falsehood or at least with
equivocation. But he at once adds in what respect he is a genuine
Pharisee, namely for holding to the "hope and resurrection of men
dead," 'Totenauferstehung.' There are no articles in the Greek,
hence both terms are used in their broad sense. We may regard the
expression as a hendiadys : "hope of resurrection." The fact that
this hope involved belief in angels and in spirits, and that
Paul, of course, included both in his present confession, we see
in a moment. All that we must add here is that any man who has a
conviction such as this, especially if he be a Jew, is properly
classed with the Pharisees, the outstanding exponents of this
conviction. To this day we call those who reject the resurrection
"modern Sadducees" although in other respects they may differ
entirely from the ancient Sadducees. It is true, today "Pharisee"
has come to designate another mark of this ancient sect; it now
signifies a formalist or a hypocrite; but this is a late
development in the use of the word. There in the Sanhedrin every
man understood Paul's declaration exactly as he intended it: he
was in no sense a Sadducee, he was a Pharisee who held to the
hope of the resurrection which was defended by all Pharisees
against all Sadducees. We are such Pharisees to this day.
More must be added. This hope of the resurrection was the ancient
faith of Israel. The claim of the modern Sadducees that the Old
Testament was not acquainted with this faith is refuted by
Abraham who believed that God could raise his son Isaac from the
dead (Heb. 11:9). The Old Testament is rich in similar proof. The
Pharisees were genuinely Biblical in regard to this doctrine, and
this Jewish sect dates back to the days of the return from the
Babylonian exile. Furthermore, the resurrection was the central
doctrine of the apostolic gospel (2:32; 3:15; 4:10; 5:28; 13:30,
34; I Cor. 15:4-20). It was so essential because of the
resurrection of Jesus as the Christ. Jesus proclaimed his own
resurrection (John 2:18-22; Matt. 8:31; 9:31; 10:34), promised to
raise up all the dead (John 5:25), especially his believers (John
6:39,40,44,54), rose as promised, and gave his chosen witnesses
"many infallible proofs" thereof (Acts 1:3). The folly of the
Sadducees in denying the resurrection is exposed in Matt.22:23,
etc. Gamaliel himself threw cold water on the Sanhedrin's
readiness to slay the apostles for preaching the resurrection of
Jesus (Acts 5:33, etc.). The Christian teaching of the
resurrection drew many Pharisees to the faith; we note some of
them in 15:5.
Before a body that was composed in part of so many Pharisees Paul
says, "I am called in question," I, ON the matter of the
resurrection, the one great thing which makes me, too, a
Pharisee. That was certainly preposterous. We may translate
...."I am being judged," .....
MATTHEW HENRY'S COMMENTARY
But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the
other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I
am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and
resurrection of the dead I am called in question. (7) And when he
had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and
the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided. (8) For the
Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor
spirit: but the Pharisees confess both. (9) And there arose a
great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees' part
arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a
spirit or an angel bath spoken to him, let us not
fight against God. (10) And when there arose a great dissension,
the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in
pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take
him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle.
(11) And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be
of good cheer, Paul: for as thou bast testified of me in
Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Many are the troubles of the righteous, but some way or other the
Lord delivereth them out of them all. Paul owned he had
experienced the truth of this in the persecutions be had
undergone among the Gentiles (see 2 Tim. iii. 11): Out of them
all the Lord delivered me. And now he finds that he who has
delivered does and will deliver. He that delivered him in the
foregoing chapter from the tumult of the people here delivers him
from that of the elders.
His own prudence and ingenuity stand him in some stead, and
contribute much to his escape. Paul's greatest honour, and that
upon which he most valued himself, was that he was a Christian,
and an apostle of Christ; and all his other honours he despised
and made nothing of, in comparison with this, counting them but
dung, that he might win Christ, and yet he had sometimes occasion
to make use of his other honours, and they did him service. His
being a citizen of Rome saved him in the foregoing chapter from
his being scourged by the chief captain as a vagabond, and here
his being a Pharisee saved him from being condemned by the
Sanhedrim, as an apostate from the faith and worship of the God
of Israel. It will consist very well with our willingness to
suffer for Christ to use all lawful methods, nay, and arts too,
both to prevent suffering and to extricate ourselves out of it.
The honest policy Paul used here for his own preservation was to
divide his judges, and to set them at variance one with another
about him; and, by incensing one part of them more against him,
to engage the contrary part for him.
The great council was made up of Sadducees and Pharisees, and
Paul perceived it. He knew the characters of many of them ever
since he lived among them, and saw those among them whom he knew
to be Sadducees, and others whom he knew to be Pharisees (v.6):
One part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, and perhaps
nearly an equal part. Now these differed very much from one
another, and yet they ordinarily agreed well enough to do the
business of the council together. (1.) The Pharisees were bigots,
zealous for the ceremonies, not only those which God had
appointed, but those which were enjoined by the tradition of the
elders. They were great sticklers for the authority of the
church, and for enforcing obedience to its injunctions, which
occasioned many quarrels between them and our Lord Jesus; but at
the same time they were very orthodox in the faith of the Jewish
church concerning the world of spirits, the resurrection of the
dead, and the life of the world to come. (2.) The Sadducees were
deists - no friends to the scripture, or divine revelation. The
books of Moses they admitted as containing a good history and a
good law, but had little regard to the other books of the Old
Testament; see Matt. xxii. 23. The account here given of these
Sadduceee is, [l.] That they deny the resurrection; not only the
return of the body to life, but a future state of rewards and
punishments. They had neither hope of eternal happiness nor dread
of eternal misery, nor expectation of any thing on the other side
death; and it was upon these principles that they said, It is in
vain to serve God, and called the proud happy, Mal. iii.14,15.
[2] That they denied the existence of angels and spirits, and
allowed of no being but matter.....When they read of angels in
the Old Testament, they supposed them to be messengers that God
made and sent on his errands as there was occasion, or that they
were impressions on the fancies of those they were sent to, and
no real existences - that they were this, or that, or any thing
rather than what they were. And, as for the souls of men, they
looked upon them to be nothing else but the temperament of the
humours of the body, or the animal spirits, but denied their
existence in a state of separation from the body, and any
difference between the soul of a man and of a beast. These, no
doubt, pretended to be free-thinkers, but really thought as
meanly, absurdly, and slavishly, as possible. It is strange how
men of such corrupt and wicked principles could come into office,
and have a place in the great Sanhedrim; but many of them were of
quality and estate, and they complied with the public
establishment, and so got in and kept in. But they were generally
stigmatized as heretics, were ranked with the Epicureans, and
were prayed against and excluded from eternal life. The prayer
which the modern Jews use against Christians, Witsius thinks, was
designed by Gamaliel, who made it, against the Sadducees; and
that they meant them in their usual imprecation, 'let the name of
the wicked rot.' But how degenerate was the character and how
miserable the state of the Jewish church, when such profane men
as these were among their rulers !
In this matter of difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees
Paul openly declared himself to be on the Pharisees side against
the Sadducees (v.6): He cried out, so as to be heard by all, "I
am a Pharisee, was bred a Pharisee, nay, I was born one, in
effect, for I was the son of a Pharisee, my father was one before
me, and thus far I am still a Pharisee in that I hope for the
resurrection of the dead, and I may truly say that, if the matter
were rightly understood, it would be found that this is it for
which I am now called in question." When Christ was upon earth
the Pharisees set themselves most against him, because he
witnessed against their traditions and corrupt glosses upon the
law; but, after his ascension, the Sadducees set themselves most
against his apostles, because they preached through Jesus the
resurrection of the dead, ch.iv.1,2. And it is said (ch.v.17)
that they were the sect of the Sadducees that were filled with
indignation at them, because they preached that life and
immortality which is brought to light by the gospel. Now here,
(1.) Paul owns himself a Pharisee, so far as the Pharisees were
in the right. Though as Pharisaism was opposed to Christianity he
set himself against it, and against all its traditions that were
set up in competition with the law of God or in contradiction to
the gospel of Christ, yet, it was opposed to Sadducism, he
adhered to it. We must never think the worse of any truth of God,
nor be more shy of owning it, for its being held by men otherwise
corrupt. If the Pharisees will hope for the resurrection of the
dead, Paul will go along with them in that hope, and be one of
them, whether they will or no. (2.) He might truly say that being
persecuted, as a Christian, this was the thing he was called in
question for. Perhaps he knew that the Sadducees, though they had
not such an interest in the common people as the Pharisees had,
yet had underhand incensed the mob against him, under pretence of
his having preached to the Gentiles, but really because he had
preached the hope of the resurrection. However, being called in
question for his being a Christian, he might truly say he was
called in question for the hope of the resurrection of the dead,
as he afterwards pleaded, ch. xxiv.15, and ch. xxvi.6,7. Though
Paul preached against the traditions of the elders (as his Master
had done), and therein opposed the Pharisees, yet he valued
himself more upon his preaching the resurrection of the dead, and
a future state, in which he concurred with the Pharisees.
(3.) This occasioned a division in the council. It is probable
that the high priest sided with the Sadducees (as he had done ch.
v.17, and made it to appear by his rage at Paul, v.2), which
alarmed the Pharisees so much the more; but so it was, there
arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees (v.
7), for this word of Paul's made the Sadducees more warm and the
Pharisees more cool in the prosecution of him; in that the
multitude was divided; there was a schism, a quarrel among them,
and the edge of their zeal began to turn from Paul against one
another; nor could they go on to act against him when they could
not agree among themselves, or prosecute him for breaking the
unity of the church when there was so little among them of the
unity of the spirit. All the cry bad been against Paul, but now
there arose a great cry against one another, v.9. So much did a
fierce furious, spirit prevail among all orders of the Jews at
this time that every thing was done with clamour and noise; and
in such a tumultuous manner were the great principles of their
religion stickled for, by which they received little service, for
the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Gainsayers
may be convinced by fair reasoning, but never by great cry.
(4.) The Pharisees hereupon (would one think it?) took Paul's
part
(v.9): They strove....They fought, saying, We find no evil in
this man. He had conducted himself decently and reverently in the
temple, and had attended the service of the church.....
.............
TO BE CONTINUED
Jesus and Paul - Pharisees? #3
Some say they were - my Answer
by
Keith Hunt
THE PHARISEES IN THE GOSPELS
Most "Christian" scholars will agree that John the Baptist and
Jesus Christ were truly "men sent by God" to proclaim the truths
of God to a deceived world of their day.
Now HOW did these two great prophets of the Lord look at these
piously religious leaders and teachers of the law, that were
known as the sect of the Pharisees, did they think this sect of
Judaism comprised "the true Church of God" in their day?
Did Jesus and John believe the Pharisees had full and PERFECT
understanding of the Law of the Lord?
Notice what John the Baptist thought about the two prominent
sects of his day: "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and
Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, 0 GENERATION OF
VIPERS, WHO HAS WARNED YOU TO FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME? Bring
forth therefore FRUITS meet for REPENTANCE....." (Mat.3:7,8).
This does not sound to me like John thought they were a part of
the true Church of God, or that as touching the law they were
BLAMELESS, nor that they were teaching the PERFECT MANNER OF THE
LAW of God.
Were the DOCTRINES of the Sadducees and Pharisees pure and
without fault? Jesus gave us the answer as He taught His
disciples
to BEWARE of these two Jewish sects. You can read the whole
account in Mat.16:1-12.
The word "leaven" i s often used in the NT to represent SIN -
a missing of the mark, defilement, unGodliness -- see 1
Cor.5:1-8.
Jesus clearly taught us to "take HEED and BEWARE of the LEAVEN of
the Pharisees and Sadducees." And He meant to say by this,as
verse 12 shows, "the DOCTRINE of the Pharisees and of the
Sadducees."
Anyone who looks to these two Jewish sects thinking they are, or
one of them is, the holders of the pure and perfect DOCTRINE and
RIGHTEOUSNESS which is in the law, is not doing what Jesus said
in taking heed and being beware of the sin of their doctrines!
Concerning this section of scripture WILLIAM BARCLAY in his
"Daily Study Bible" series in part says this: "Leaven has a
second meaning which is metaphorical and not literal and
physical. It was the Jewish metaphorical expression for an evil
influence. To the Jewish mind leaven was always symbolic of evil.
It is fermented dough; the Jew identified fermentation with
putrefaction; leaven stood for all that was rotten and bad.
Leaven has the power to permeate any mass of dough into which it
is inserted. Therefore leaven stood for an evil influence liable
to spread through life and to corrupt it. Now the disciples
understood. They knew that Jesus was not talking about bread at
all; but he was warning them against the evil influence of the
TEACHING and the BELIEFS of the Pharisees and
Sadducees."(emphasis his and mine).
Again I ask the question: Were the scribes and Pharisees
perfectly understanding and living the law of the Lord? Were they
as touching the righteousness of the law, BLAMELESS?
Turn to Mark the seventh chapter and read verses one to thirteen
for the answer.
Jesus gives us the truth of the matter. The Pharisees and the
Scribes were REJECTING and LAYING ASIDE the commands of God, and
doing about keeping the traditions of men!
We shall in some detail look at what Jesus taught us about the
Scribes and Pharisees as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew
chapter 23.
Jesus takes all of 36 verses to show us the real nature of the
majority o these individuals who made up the groups known as the
Scribes and the Pharisees.
For our study I have reproduced the pertinent pages from WILLIAM
BARCLAY'S "THE DAILY STUDY BIBLE' SERIES - the Gospel of Matthew,
Vol.2 Revised Ed.
QUOTE:
SCRIBES AND PHARISEES
If a man is characteristically and temperamentally an irritable,
ill-tempered and irascible creature, notoriously given to
uncontrolled outbursts of passionate anger, his anger is neither
effective nor impressive. Nobody pays any attention to the
anger of a bad-tempered man. But when a person who is
characteristically meek and lowly, gentle and loving, suddenly
erupts into blazing wrath, even the most thoughtless person is
shocked into taking thought. That is why the anger of Jesus is so
awe-inspiring a sight. It is seldom in literature that we find so
unsparing and sustained an indictment as we find in this chapter
when the wrath of Jesus is directed against the Scribes and
Pharisees. Before we begin to study the chapter in detail, it
will be well to see briefly what the Scribes and Pharisees stood
for.
The Jews had a deep and lasting sense of the continuity of their
religion; and we can see best what the Pharisees and Scribes
stood for by seeing where they came into the scheme of Jewish
religion. The Jews had a saying, "Moses received the Law and
delivered it to Joshua; and Joshua to the elders; and the elders
to the prophets; and the prophets to the men of the Great
Synagogue." All Jewish religion is based first on the Ten
Commandments and then on the Pentateuch, the Law.
The history of the Jews was designed to make them a people of the
Law. As every nation has, they had their dream of greatness. But
the experiences of history had made that dream take a special
direction. They had been conquered by the Assyrians, the
Babylonians, the Persians, and Jerusalem had been left desolate.
It was clear that they could not be preeminent in political
power. But although political power was an obvious impossibility,
they none the less possessed the Law, and to them the Law was the
very word of God, the greatest and most precious possession in
the world.
There came a day in their history when that pre-eminence of the
Law was, as it were, publicly admitted; there came what one can
only call a deliberate act of decision, whereby the people of
Israel became in the most unique sense the people of the Law.
Under Ezra and Nehemiah the people were allowed to come back to
Jerusalem, and to rebuild their shattered city, and to take up
their national life again. When that happened, there came a day
when Ezra, the Scribe, took the book of the Law, and read it to
them, and there happened something that was nothing less than a
national dedication of a people to the keeping of the Law
(Nehemiah 8:1-8).
From that day the study of the Law became the greatest of all
professions; and that study of the Law was committed to the men
of the Great Synagogue, the Scribes.
We have already seen how the great principles of the Law were
broken up into thousands upon thousands of little rules and
regulations (see section on Matthew 5:17-20). We have seen, for
instance, how the Law said that a man must not work on the
Sabbath day, and how the Scribes laboured to define work, how
they laid it down how many paces a man might walk on the Sabbath,
how heavy a burden he might carry, the things he might and might
not do. By the time this Scribal interpretation of the Law was
finished, it took more than FIFTY volumes to hold the mass of
regulations which resulted.
The return of the people to Jerusalem and the first dedication of
the Law took place about 450 B.C. But it is not till long after
that that the Pharisees emerge. About 175 B.C. Antiochus
Epiphanes of Syria made a deliberate attempt to stamp out the
Jewish religion and to introduce Greek religion and Greet customs
and practices. It was then that the Pharisees arose as a separate
sect. The name means "The Separated Ones;" and they were the men
who dedicated their whole life to the careful and meticulous
observance of every rule and regulation which the Scribes had
worked out. In face of the threat directed against it, they
determined to spend their whole lives in one long observance of
Judaism in its most elaborate and ceremonial and legal form. They
were men who accepted the ever-increasing number of religious
rules and regulations extracted from the Law.
There were never very many of them; at most there were not more
than SIX thousand of them; for the plain fact was that, if a man
was going to accept and carry out every little regulation of the
Law, he would have time for nothing else; he had to withdraw
himself, to separate himself, from ordinary life in order to keep
the Law.
The Pharisees then were two things. First, they were dedicated
legalists; religion to them was the observance of every detail of
the Law. But second - and this is never to be forgotten - they
were men in desperate earnest about their religion, for no one
would have accepted the impossibly demanding task of living a
life like that unless he had been in the most deadly earnest.
They could, therefore, develop at one and the same time all the
faults of legalism and all the virtues of complete
self-dedication. A Pharisee might either be a desiccated or
arrogant legalist, or a man of burning devotion to God.
To say this is not to pass a particularly Christian verdict on
the Pharisees, for the Jews themselves passed that very verdict.
The Talmud distinguishes seven different kinds of Pharisee.
(i) There was the Shoulder Pharisee. He was meticulous in his
observance of the Law; but he wore his good deeds upon his
shoulder. He was out for a reputation for purity and goodness.
True, he obeyed the Law, but he did so in order to be seen of
men.
(ii) There was the Wait-a-little Pharisee. He was the Pharisee
who could always produce an entirely valid excuse for putting off
a good deed. He professed the creed of the strictest Pharisees
but he could always find an excuse for allowing practice to lag
behind. He spoke, but he did not do.
(iii) There was the Bruised or Bleeding Pharisee. The Talmud
speaks of the plague of self-afflicting Pharisees. These
Pharisees received their name for this reason. Women had a very
low status in Palestine. No really strict orthodox teacher would
be seen talking to a woman in public, even if that woman was his
own wife or sister. These Pharisees went even further; they would
not even allow themselves to look at a woman on the street. In
order to avoid doing so they would shut their eyes, and so bump
into walls and buildings and obstructions. They thus bruised and
wounded themselves, and their wounds and bruises gained them a
special reputation for exceeding piety.
(iv) There was the Pharisee who was variously described as the
Pestle and Mortar Pharisee, or the Hump-backed Pharisee, or the
Tumbling Pharisee. Such men walked in such ostentatious humility
that they were bent like a pestle in a mortar or like a
hunch-back. They were so humble that they would not even lift
their feet from the ground and so tripped over every obstruction
they met. Their humility was a self-advertising ostentation.
(v) There was the Ever-reckoning or Compounding Pharisee. This
kind of Pharisee was for ever reckoning up his good deeds; he was
for ever striking a balance sheet between himself and God, and he
believed that every good deed he did put God a little further in
his debt. To him religion was always to be reckoned in terms of a
profit and loss account.
(vi) There was the Timid or Fearing Pharisee. He was always in
dread-of divine punishment. He was, therefore, always cleansing
the outside of the cup and the platter, so that he might seem to
be good - He saw religion in terms of judgment and life in terms
of a terror-stricken evasion of this judgment.
(vii) Finally, there was the God fearing Pharisee; he was the
Pharisee who really and truly loved God and who found his delight
in obedience to the Law of God, however difficult that it might
be.
That was the Jew's own classification of the Pharisees; and it is
to be noted that there were six bad types to one good one. There
would be not a few listening to Jesus's denunciation of the
Pharisees who agreed with every word of it.
MAKING RELIGION A BURDEN
Matthew 23: 1-4
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The Scribes
and Pharisee sit on Moses's seat. Therefore do and observe
everything they tell you; but do not act as they act; for they
speak, but they do not do. They bind burdens that are heavy and
hard to bear, and place them on men's shoulders; but they
themselves refuse to lift a finger to remove them."
HERE we see the lineaments of the Pharisees already beginning to
appear. Here we see the Jewish conviction of the continuity of
the faith. God gave the Law to Moses; Moses handed it to
Joshua; Joshua transmitted it to the elders; the elders passed it
down to the prophets; and the prophets gave it to the Scribes and
Pharisees.
It must NOT for a MOMENT be thought that Jesus is COMMENDING the
Scribes and Pharisees with all their rules and regulations. What
he is saying is this, "In SO FAR AS these Scribes and Pharisees
have taught you the great principles of the Law which Moses
received from God, you must obey them." When we were studying
Matthew 5:17-20 we saw what these principles were. The whole of
the Ten Commandments are based on two great principles. They are
based on reverence, reverence for God, for God's name, for God's
day, for the parents God has given to us. They are based on
respect, respect for a man's life, for his possessions, for his
personality, for his good name, for oneself. These principles are
eternal; and, IN SO FAR as the Scribes and Pharisees teach
reverence for God and respect for men, their teaching is
eternally binding and eternally valid.
But their whole outlook on religion had one fundamental effect.
It made it a thing of thousands upon thousands of rules and
regulations; and therefore it made it an intolerable burden. Here
is the test of any presentation of religion. Does it make it
wings to lift a man up, or a deadweight to drag him down? Does it
make it a joy or a depression? Is a man helped by his religion or
is he haunted by it? Does it carry him, or has he to carry it?
Whenever religion becomes a depressing affair of burdens and
prohibitions, it ceases to be true religion.
Nor would the Pharisees allow the slightest relaxation. Their
whole self-confessed purpose was to "build a fence around the
Law." Not one regulation would they relax or remove. Whenever
religion becomes a burden, it ceases to be true religion.
THE RELIGION OF OSTENTATION
Matthew 23: 5-12
"They perform all their actions to be seen by men. They broaden
their phylacteries; they wear outsize tassels. They love the
highest places at meals, and the front seats in the synagogues,
and greetings in the market-place, and to be called Rabbi by men.
You must not be called Rabbi; for you have only one teacher, and
you are all brothers. Call no once upon earth father, you have
one Father - your Father in Heaven. Nor must you be called
leaders; you have one leader - Chris. He who is greatest among
you will be your servant. Anyone who will exalt himself will be
humbled; and whoever will humble himself w ill be exalted."
THE religion of the Pharisees became almost inevitably a religion
of ostentation. If religion consists in obeying countless rules
and regulations, it becomes easy for a man to see to it that
everyone is aware how well he fulfils the regulations, and how
perfect is his piety. Jesus selects certain actions and customs
in which the Pharisees showed their ostentation.
They made broad their phylacteries. It is said of the
commandments of God in Exodus 13:9: "It shall be to you as a sign
on your hand, and a memorial between your eyes." The same saying
is repeated, "It shall be as a mark on your hand, or frontlets
between your eyes" (Exodus 13:16; cp. Deuteronomy 6:8; 11:18). In
order to fulfil these commandments the Jew wore at prayer, and
still wears, what are called "tephiliin" or phylacteries. They
are worn on every day except the Sabbath and special holy days.
They are like little leather boxes, strapped one on the wrist and
one on the forehead. The one on the wrist is a little leather box
of one compartment, and inside it there is a parchment roll with
the following four passages of scripture written on it Exodus 13:
1-10; 13:11-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21. The one worn on the
forehead is the same except that in it there are four little
compartments, and in each compartment there is a little scroll
inscribed with one of these four passages. The Pharisees, in
order to draw attention to himself, not only wore phylacteries,
but wore specially big ones, so that he might demonstrate his
exemplary obedience to the Law and his exemplary piety.
They wear outsize tassels; the tassels are in Greek "kraspeda"
and in Hebrew "zizith." In Numbers 15:37-41 and in Deuteronomy
22:12 we read that God commanded his people to make fringes on
the borders of their garments, so that when they looked on them
they might remember the commandments of God. These fringes were
like tassels worn on the four corners of the outer garment. Later
they were worn on the inner garment, and today they are
perpetuated in the tassels of the "prayershawl" which the devout
Jew wears at prayer. It was easy to make these tassels of
specially large size so that they became an ostentatious display
of piety, worn, not to remind a man of the commandments, but to
draw attention to himself.
Further, the Pharisees liked to be given the principal places at
meals, on the left and on the right of the host. They liked the
front seats in the synagogues. In Palestine the back seats were
occupied by the children and the most unimportant people; the
further forward the seat, the greater the honour. The most
honoured seats of all were the seats of the elders, which faced
the congregation. If a man was seated there, everyone would see
that he was present and he could conduct himself throughout the
service with a pose of piety which the congregation could not
fail to notice. Still further, the Pharisee liked to be addressed
as "Rabbi" and to be treated with the greatest respect. They
claimed, in point of fact, greater respect than that which was
given to parents, for, they said, "a man's parents give him
ordinary, physical life, but a man's teacher gives him eternal
life." They even liked to be called "father" as Elisha called
Elijah (2 Kings 2:12) and as the fathers of the faith were known.
Jesus insists that the Christian should remember that he has one
teacher only - and that teacher is Christ; and only one Father in
the faith - and that Father is God.
The whole design of the Pharisees was to dress and act in such a
way as to draw attention to themselves; the whole design of the
Christian should be to obliterate himself, so that if men see his
good deeds, they may glorify not him, but his Father in Heaven.
Any religion which produces ostentation in action and pride in
the heart is a false religion.
...............
TO BE CONTINUED
Jesus and Paul - Pharisees? #4
Some want to say they were
by
Keith Hunt
SHUTTING THE DOOR
Matthew 23: 13
"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut
the door to the Kingdom of Heaven in the face of men! You
yourselves are not going into it; nor do you allow those who are
trying to get into to enter it."
Verses 13-26 of this chapter form the most terrible and the most
sustained denunciation in the New Testament. Here we hear what A.
T. Robertson called "the rolling thunder of Christ's wrath." As
Plummer has written, these woes are "like thunder in their
unanswerable severity, and like lightning in their unsparing
exposure.... They illuminate while they strike."
Here Jesus directs a series of seven woes against the Scribes and
Pharisees. The Revised Standard Version begins every one of them:
"Woe to you!" The Greek word for woe is "ouai;" it is hard to
translate for it includes not only wrath, but also sorrow. There
is righteous anger here, but it is the anger of the heart of
love, broken by the stubborn blindness of men. There is not only
an air of savage denunciation; there is also an atmosphere of
poignant tragedy.
The word hypocrite occurs here again and again. Originally the
Greek word "hupokrites" meant one who answers; it then came to be
specially connected with the statement and answer, the dialogue,
of the stage; and it is the regular Greek word for "an actor." It
then came to mean an actor in the WORSE sense of the term, a
PRETENDER, one who acts a part, one who wears a mask to cover his
true feelings, one who puts on an external show while inwardly
his thoughts and feelings are very different.
To Jesus the Scribes and Pharisees were men who were acting a
part. What he meant was this. Their whole idea of religion
consisted in outward observances, the wearing of elaborate
phylacteries and tassels, the meticulous observance of the rules
and regulations of the Law. But in their hearts there was
bitterness and envy and pride and arrogance. To Jesus
these Scribes and Pharisees were men who, under a mask of
elaborate godliness, concealed hearts in which the most godless
feelings and emotions held sway. And that accusation holds good
in greater or lesser degree of any man who lives life on the
assumption that religion consists in external observances and
external acts.
There is an unwritten saying of Jesus which says, "The key of the
Kingdom they hid." His condemnation of these Scribes and
Pharisees is that they are not only failing to enter the Kingdom
themselves, they shut the door on the faces of those who seek to
enter. What did he mean by this accusation?
We have already seen (Matthew 6:10) that the best way to think of
the Kingdom is to think of it as a society on earth where God's
will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven. To be a citizen of
the Kingdom, and to do God's will, are one and the same thing.
The Pharisees believed that to do God's will was to observe their
thousands of petty rules and regulations; and nothing could be
further from that Kingdom whose basic idea is love. When people
tried to find entry into the Kingdom the Pharisees presented them
with these rules and regulations, which was as good as shutting
the door in their faces.
The Pharisees preferred their ideas of religion to God's idea of
religion. They had forgotten the basic truth that, if a man would
teach others, he must himself first listen to God. The gravest
danger which any teacher or preacher encounters is that he should
erect his own prejudices into universal principles and substitute
his own ideas for the truth of God. When he does that he is not a
guide, but a barrier, to the Kingdom, for, misled himself, he
misleads others.
MISSIONARIES OF EVIL
Matthew 23:15
"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, for you range over the sea
and the dry land to make one proselyte, and, when that happens,
you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves! "
A STRANGE feature of the ancient world was the repulsion and
attraction which Judaism exercised over men at one and the same
time. There was no more hated people than the Jews. Their
separatism and their isolation and their contempt of other
nations gained them hostility. It was, in fact, believed that a
basic part of their religion was an oath that they would never
under any circumstances give help to a Gentile, even to the
extent of giving him directions if he asked the way. Their
observance of the Sabbath gained them a reputation for laziness;
their refusal of swine's flesh gained them mockery, even to the
extent of the rumour that they worshipped the pig as their god.
Anti-semitism was a real and universal force in the ancient
world.
And yet there was an attraction. The idea of one God came as a
wonderful thing to a world which believed in a multitude of gods.
Jewish ethical purity and standards of morality had a fascination
in a world steeped in immorality, especially for women. The
result was that many were attracted to Judaism.
Their attraction was on two levels. There were those who were
called the god-fearers. These accepted the conception of one God;
they accepted the Jewish moral law; but they took no part in the
ceremonial law and did not become circumcised. Such people
existed in large numbers, and were to be found listening and
worshipping in every synagogue, and indeed provided Paul with his
most fruitful field for evangelization. They are, for instance,
the devout Greeks of Thessalonica (Acts 17:4).
It was the aim of the Pharisees to turn these god fearers into
proselytes; the word proselyte is an English transliteration of a
Greek word "proselytes," which means one who has approached or
drawn near. The proselyte was the full convert who had accepted
the ceremonial law and circumcision and who had become in the
fullest sense a Jew. As so often happens, "the most converted
were the most perverted." A convert often becomes the most
fanatical devotee of his new religion; and many of these
proselytes were more fanatically devoted to the Jewish Law than
even the Jews themselves.
Jesus accused these Pharisees of being missionaries of evil. It
was true that very few became proselytes, but those who did went
the whole way. The sin of the Pharisees was that they were not
really seeking to lead men to God, they were seeking to lead them
to Pharisaism. One of the gravest dangers which any missionary
runs is that he should try to convert people to a sect rather
than to a religion, and that he should be more concerned in
bringing people to a Church than to Jesus Christ
Premanand has certain things to say about this sectarianism which
so often disfigures so-called Christianity: "I speak as a
Christian, God is my Father, the Church is my Mother. Christian
is my name; Catholic is my surname. Catholic, because we belong
to nothing less than the Church Universal. So do we need any
other names? Why go on to add Anglican, Episcopalian, Protestant,
Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational, Baptist, and so on, and
so on? These terms are divisive, sectarian, narrow. They shrivel
up one's soul."
It was not to God the Pharisees sought to lead men; it was to
their own sect of Pharisaism. That in fact was their sin. And is
that sin even yet gone from the world, when it would still be
insisted in certain quarters that a man must leave one Church and
become a member of another before he can be allowed a place at
the Table of the Lord? The greatest of all heresies is the sinful
conviction that any Church has a monopoly of God or of his truth,
or that any Church is the only gateway to God's Kingdom.
THE SCIENCE OF EVASION
Matthew 23:16-22
"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees! Blind guides! You who say,
'If any one swears by the Temple, it is nothing; but whoever
swears by the gold of the Temple is bound by his oath' Foolish
ones and blind! Which is the greater? The gold? Or the Temple
which hallows the gold? You say,'If anyone swears by the altar,
it is nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift that is on it, he
is bound by his oath.' Blind ones! Which is greater? The gift? Or
the altar which hallows the gift? He who swears by the altar,
swears by it and all that is on it He who swears by the Temple,
swears by it, and by him who inhabits it. And he who swears by
heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits upon
it."
We have already seen that in matters of oaths the Jewish
legalists were masters of evasion (Matthew 5:33-37). The general
principle of evasion was this. To the Jew an oath was absolutely
binding, so long as it was a binding oath. Broadly speaking, a
binding oath was an oath which definitely and without
equivocation employed the name of God; such an oath must be kept,
no matter what the cost. Any other oath might be legitimately
broken. The idea was that, if God's name was actually used, then
God was introduced as a partner into the transaction, and to
break the oath was not only to break faith with men but to insult
God.
The science of evasion had been brought to a high degree. It is
most probable that in this passage Jesus is presenting a
caricature of Jewish legalistic methods. He is saying, " You have
brought evasion to such a fine art that it is possible to regard
an oath by the Temple as not binding, while an oath by the gold
of the Temple is binding; and an oath by the altar as not
binding, while an oath by the gift on the altar is binding."
This is rather to be regarded as a 'reductio ad absurdum' of
Jewish methods than as a literal description.
The idea behind the passage is just this. The whole idea of
treating oaths in this way, the whole conception of a kind of
technique of evasion, is born of a fundamental deceitfulness. The
truly religious man will never make a promise with the deliberate
intention of evading it; he will never, as he makes it, provide
himself with a series of escape routes, which he may use if he
finds his promise hard to keep.
We need not with conscious superiority condemn the Pharisaic
science of evasion. The time is not yet ended when a man seeks to
evade some duty on a technicality or calls in the strict letter
of the law to avoid doing what the spirit of the law clearly
means he ought to do.
For Jesus the binding principle was twofold. God hears every word
we speak and God sees every intention of our hearts. In view of
that the fine art of evasion is one to which a Christian should
be foreign. The technique of evasion may suit the sharp practice
of the world; but never the open honesty of the Christian mind.
THE LOST SENSE OF PROPORTION
Matthew 23:23,24
"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe
mint, and dill, and cummin. and let go the weightier matters of
the Law, justice and mercy and fidelity. These you ought to have
done without neglecting the others. Blind guides who strain out a
gnat and swallow a camel!"
The tithe was an essential part of Jewish religious regulations.
"You shall tithe all the yield of your seed, which comes forth
from the field year by year" (Deuteronomy 14:22). "All the tithe
of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of
the trees is the Lord's; it is holy to the Lord" (Leviticus 27:
30). This tithe was specially for the support of the Levites,
whose task it was to do the material work of the Temple. The
things which had to be tithed were further defined by the Law.
"Everything which is eatable, and is preserved, and has its
nourishment from the soil, is liable to be tithed." It is laid
down: "Of dill one must tithe the seeds, the leaves and the
stalks." So, then, it was laid down that every man must lay aside
one-tenth of his produce for God.
The point of Jesus's saying is this. It was universally accepted
that tithes of the main crops must be given. But mint and dill
and cummin are herbs of the kitchen garden and would not be grown
in any quantity; a man would have only a little patch of them.
All three were used in cooking, and dill and cummin had medicinal
uses. To tithe them was to tithe an infinitesimally small crop,
maybe not much more than the produce of one plant. Only those who
were superlatively meticulous would tithe the single plants of
the kitchen garden. That is precisely what the Pharisees were
like. They were so absolutely meticulous about tithes that they
would tithe even one clump of mint; and yet these same men could
be guilty of injustice; could be hard and arrogant and cruel,
forgetting the claims of mercy; could take oaths and pledges and
promises with the deliberate intention of evading them,
forgetting fidelity. In other words, many of them kept the
trifles of the Law and forgot the things which really matter.
That spirit is not dead; it never will be until Christ rules in
the hearts of men. There is many a man who wears the right
clothes to church, carefully hands in his offering to the Church,
adopts the right attitude at prayer, is never absent from the
celebration of the sacrament, and who is not doing an honest
day's work and is irritable and bad-tempered and mean with his
money. There are women who are full of good works and who serve
on all kinds of committees, and whose children are lonely for
them at night. There is nothing easier than to observe all the
outward actions of religion and yet be completely irreligious.
There is nothing more necessary than a sense of proportion to
save us from confusing religious observances with real devotion.
Jesus uses a vivid illustration. In verse 24 a curious thing has
happened in the Authorized Version. It should not be to strain at
a gnat, but to strain OUT a gnat as in the Revised Standard
Version. Originally that mistake was simply a misprint but it has
been perpetuated for centuries. In point of fact the older
versions Tyndale, Coverdale, and the Geneva Bible - all correctly
have to strain OUT a gnat. The picture is this. A gnat was an
insect and therefore unclean; and so was a camel. In order to
avoid the risk of drinking anything unclean, wine was strained
through muslin gauze so that any possible impurity might be
strained out of it. This is a humorous picture which must have
raised a laugh, of a man carefully straining his wine through
gauze to avoid swallowing a microscopic insect and yet cheerfully
swallowing a camel. It is the picture of a man who has completely
lost his sense of proportion.
THE REAL CLEANNESS
Matthew 23:25,26
"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse
the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of
rapacity and lust. Blind Pharisee! cleanse the inside of the cup
and the plate first, that the outside of it also may be clean."
The idea of uncleanness is continually arising in the Jewish Law.
It must be remembered that this uncleanness was not physical
uncleanness. An unclean vessel was not in our sense of the term a
dirty vessel. For a person to be ceremonially unclean meant that
they could not enter the Temple or the synagogue; he was debarred
from the worship of God. A man was unclean if, for instance, he
touched a dead body, or came into contact with a Gentile. A woman
was unclean if she had a haemorrhage, even if that haemorrhage
was perfectly normal and healthy. If a person who was himself
unclean touched any vessel, that vessel became unclean; and,
thereafter, any other person who touched or handled the vessel
became in turn unclean. It was, therefore, of paramount
importance to have vessels cleansed; and the law for cleansing
them is fantastically complicated. We can quote only certain
basic examples of it.
An earthen vessel which is hollow becomes unclean only on the
inside and not on the outside; and it can be cleansed only by
being broken. The following cannot become unclean at all - a flat
plate without a rim, an open coal-shovel, a grid-iron with holes
in it for parching grains of wheat. On the other hand, a plate
with a rim, or an earthen spice-box, or a writing-case can become
unclean. Of vessels made of leather, bone, wood and glass, flat
ones do not become unclean; deep ones do. If they are broken,
they become clean. Any metal vessel which is at once smooth and
hollow can become unclean; but a door, a bolt, a lock, a hinge, a
knocker cannot become unclean. If a thing is made of wood and
metal, then the wood can become unclean, but the metal cannot.
These regulations seem to us fantastic, and yet these are the
regulations the Pharisees meticulously kept.
The food or drink inside a vessel might have been obtained by
cheating or extortion or theft; it might be luxurious and
gluttonous; that did not matter, so long as the vessel itself was
ceremonially clean. Here is another example of fussing about
trifles and letting the weightier matters go.
Grotesque as the whole thing may seem, it can happen yet. A
church can be torn in two about the colour of a carpet, or a
pulpit-fall, or about the shape or metal of the cups to be used
in the Sacrament. The last thing that men and women seem to learn
in matters of religion is a relative sense of values; and the
tragedy is that it is so often magnification of matters of no
importance which wreck the peace.
DISGUISED DECAY
Matthew 23: 27, 28
"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees! for you are like
white-washed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but
inside are full of the bones of dead men, and of all corruption.
So you, too, outwardly look righteous to men, but inwardly you
art full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."
HERE again is a picture which any Jew would understand. One of
the commonest places for tombs was by the wayside. We have
already seen that anyone who touched a dead body became unclean
(Numbers 19:16). Therefore, anyone who came into contact with a
tomb automatically became unclean. At one time in particular the
roads of Palestine were crowded with pilgrims - at the time of
the Passover Feast. For a man to become unclean on his way to the
Passover Feast would be a disaster, for that meant he would be
debarred from sharing in it. It was then Jewish practice in the
month of Adar to whitewash all wayside tombs, so that no pilgrims
might accidentally come into contact with one of them and be
rendered unclean.
So, as a man journeyed the roads of Palestine on a spring day,
these tombs would glint white, and almost lovely, in the
sunshine; but within they were full of bones and bodies whose
touch would defile. That, said Jesus, was a precise picture of
what the Pharisees were. Their outward actions were the actions
of intensely religious men; their inward hearts were foul and
putrid with sin.
It can still happen. As Shakespeare had it, a man may smile and
smile and be a villain. A man may walk with bowed head and
reverent steps and folded hands in the posture of humility, and
all the time be looking down with cold contempt on those whom he
regards as sinners. His very humility may be the pose of pride;
and, as he walks so humbly, he may be thinking with relish of the
picture of piety which he presents to those who are watching him.
There is nothing harder than for a good man not to know that he
is good; and once he knows he is good, his goodness is gone,
however he may appear to men from the outside.
THE TAINT OF MURDER
Matthew, 23: 29-36
"Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you erect
the tombs of the prophets, and adorn the memorials of the
righteous, and say,'If we had lived in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partners with them in the murder of the
prophets.' Thus you witness against yourselves that you are the
sons of those who slew the prophets. Fill up the measure of your
fathers. Serpents, brood of vipers, how are you to escape being
condemned to hell fire? For this reason, look you, I send you the
prophets and the wise men and the scribes. Some of them you will
kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your
synagogues, and pursue them with persecution from city to city,
that on you there may fall the responsibility for all the
righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of Abel, the
righteous, to the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachios, whom
you murdered between the Temple and the altar. This is the truth
I tell you - the responsibility for all these crimes shall fall
on this generation."
Jesus is charging the Jews that the taint of murder is in their
history and that that taint has not even yet worked itself out.
The Scribes and Pharisees tend the tombs of the martyrs and
beautify their memorials, and claim that, if they had lived in
the old days, they would not have slain the prophets and the men
of God. But that is precisely what they would have done, and
precisely what they are going to do.
Jesus's charge is that the history of Israel is the history of
the murder of the men of God. He says that the righteous men from
Abel to Zacharias were murdered. Why are these two chosen? The
murder of Abel by Cain everyone knows; but the murder of
Zacharias is not nearly so well known. The story is told in a
grim little in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22. It happened in the days of
Joash. Zacharias rebuked the nation for their sin, and Joash
stirred up the people to stone him to death in the very Temple
court; and Zacharias died saying, "May the Lord see and avenge!"
(Zacharias is called the son of Barachios, whereas, in fact, he
was the son of Jehoiada, no doubt a slip of the gospel writer in
retelling the story.)
Why should Zacharias be chosen? In the Hebrew Bible Genesis is
the first book, as it is in ours; but, unlike our order of the
books, 2 Chronicles is the last in the Hebrew Bible. We could say
that the murder of Abel is the first in the Bible story, and the
murder of Zacharias the last. From beginning to end, the history
of Israel is the rejection, and often the slaughter, of the men
of God.
Jesus is quite clear that the murder taint is still there. He
knows that now he must die, and that in the days to come his
messengers will be persecuted and ill-treated and rejected and
slain.
Here indeed is tragedy; the nation which God chose and loved had
turned their hands against him; and the day of reckoning was to
come.
It makes us think. When history judges us, will its verdict be
that we were the hinderers or the helpers of God? That is a
question which every individual, and every nation, must answer.
END QUOTE
We have seen in no uncertain terms in Matthew 23, what Jesus
thought about the Scribes and Pharisees. There are many other
passages in the NT where Jesus lays it all bare before us about
the Scribes and Pharisees. We have seen that He told us to BEWARE
of their "leaven" - their "doctrines." While they like all
"religious" groups have some truth, they also have MUCH error
that they teach as doctrines.
Can anyone with a sensible mind after reading all this think and
say and teach, that Jesus was a Pharisee? For me, reading the
words of Jesus from a child, when I first heard that SOME do
teach that Jesus was a Pharisee, I frankly had to laugh
literally, until I realized they were dead serious about claiming
it, and were teaching it as if it was a fact.
NO! NO! NO! Jesus was NEVER EVER a Pharisee!!
In the next study on this subject, I will answer section by
section what William Dankenbring has written.
...............
TO BE CONTINUED
Jesus and Paul - Pharisees? #5
Some say we should follow the Pharisees - my answer
by
Keith Hunt
William Dankenbring and some others put heavy weight on Jesus'
words in Matthew 23:2,3. They claim that Jesus was telling people
to obey and follow the Scribes and Pharisees in what they taught
and practiced. Of course if this was so then Jesus contradicts
Himself, as He said at another time in His ministry that His
disciples should be aware and careful of the "leaven" of the
Pharisees and Sadducees, and the context of that passage goes on
to tell you that Jesus was meaning the "doctrines" of those two
sects of Judaism (Matt. 16:6-12).
The very context of Matthew 23 should tell us that Jesus could
not have been telling people to just simply follow any dictate of
the Scribes and Pharisees. He could not have been advising people
to have some kind of "blind faith" in those leaders, because they
were "inspired of God" and because they held some kind of
"authority" as sitting in "Moses' seat."
MOSES SEAT?
The best OT definition of Moses seat is probably Deut. 17:8-12.
Please read it carefully. Moses was a "judge" - the first judge
under God in Israel. We can see that in Exodus 18: 13-16. Then
others were picked as judges (see also Numbers 11).
Yes, we see then that Moses' seat of judgement was established.
It was mainly the "hard" things (Deut.17) that they were to
judge. It was not so much the expounding and interpreting of the
"Scriptures" as much as the hard APPLICATION of some of the laws
and commandment and precepts of God. The basic things given to
Moses from the Lord and what he wrote down (what we know today as
the first five books of the Bible) DO NOT COVER every single
situation that may arise as pertaining to any particular laws or
precepts. Hence we have what we can read about in Deuteronomy 17.
Then also there was the "calendar" and "new months" within
Israel.
You can find just about NOTHING on the rules and workings of the
"calendar" in the Bible. The new month days were to be announced,
the calendar was to be formed and executed. Obviously those who
were skilled and who sat in the seat of Moses were to execute the
calendar and also when the new month days would be honored and
announced. There was then a body of people who had certain
authority over certain things within Israel.
You can read about the calendar and those who sat in charged of
it for Israel, in my studies on the calendar question.
Jesus was not telling people to just look to the Pharisees as
some kind of "inspired" and "beyond error" teachers of God's
word, and so without thinking just follow what they taught and
said. He could not have been teaching that kind of theology
mind-set from reading all that Jesus taught and said throughout
the four Gospels. Even in the OT we have Isaiah 8:20 which
clearly states that it is to the law and the testimony - the WORD
of God - that we are to look, and if ANY PERSON (your neighbor,
your child's school teacher, the bus driver, the postman, THE
RELIGIOUS MINISTER) came along and DID NOT SPEAK ACCORDING to
the law and the testimony, THERE WAS NO LIGHT IN THEM, and you
were to pay no attention to them, as far as running your life,
your mind, and your practices.
So within the CONTEXT of the entire Bible, Jesus was NOT here
teaching to just follow casually all that came out of the mouth
of the Pharisee sect. I have also shown you that the Pharisees
had at LEAST TWO THEOLOGY SCHOOLS, and they DID NOT agree on all
aspects of the understanding and interpretation of the
Scriptures.
What Jesus was then saying was that WHERE the Pharisees were
CORRECT (like they taught and believed there was to be a
resurrection), then yes, obey them, for where right and
correctness is, then it makes no difference who is teaching it.
And He was also admitting that in CERTAIN AREAS of ADMINISTRATION
(through the Jewish Sanhedrin - you can also read about that in
my studies on the Calendar) and JUDGMENT and things like
announcing the new month days, the Pharisee DID sit in Moses
seat. They did have an authority right to speak on certain things
that they were ALLOWED to speak on, as were the judges in
Deut.17.
All of this is FAR from just simply giving your mind over to some
leaders of some "religious sect" that Jesus elsewhere, as in this
very chapter we are studying, condemned with no punches pulled,
and even said they had doctrines that were "leaven" or sin (see 1
Cor.5 on how "leaven" is sometimes used to denote sin and error
and unrighteousness).
NO ONE IS TO BLINDLY FOLLOW SOMEONE ELSE,
YOU FOLLOW "IN THE LORD"
It does not matter who you are, man, woman, child, teenager,
policeman, school-teacher, doctor, nurse, space-explorer, rocket
scientist, YOU never just turn your mind over to ANYONE, and let
them have full un-conditional control of your mind and life. The
only one you should allow to control you unconditionally is God
and Jesus.
Look at the following Scriptures and mark them well.
"Children, obey your parents IN THE LORD; for this is right"
(Eph. 6:1).
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband, as it is fit IN
THE LORD." (Col.3:18).
"And we beseech you, brethren, to know them who labor among you,
and are over you IN THE LORD, and admonish you" (1 Thes. 5:12).
And I have already given you Isaiah 8: 20. Mark that one well
also.
Matthew 23:2,3 is not some catch all instructions from Jesus to
tell you that the Pharisee sect had NO ERROR in their theology
teachings, for in fact NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
And Jesus had already told you that in Matthew 16.
NOW TO ANSWER WILLIAM DANKENBRING
W.DANKENBRING:
The apostle Paul, of course, was a Pharisee. Did the apostle Paul
deliberately "lie," and bear false witness, in the New Testament?
As a strict Pharisee, all his life he observed Pentecost on the
same day as all the Pharisees did -- Sivan 6, counting 50 days
from the clay of the wave sheaf offering, which the Pharisees
offered the day after the first high holy Day of Passover.
Following the Sadducean Pentecost reckoning makes a LIAR out of
the apostle Paul, who himself was a Pharisee, and who was
brought up and taught at the feet of the leading Pharisee of his
day, Gamaliel. Paul says,"I am verily a man which am a Jew,
born in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at
the feet of Gamaliel, and TAUGHT according; to the PERFECT MANNER
OF THE LAW of the fathers" (Acts 22:3). Do we dare believe that
he, apostle Paul, was a LIAR? If Paul says he was taught the Law
of God perfectly, as a Pharisee, at the feet of the leading
Pharisee of that day, Gamaliel, then he is saying he was taught
correctly concerning Pentecost calculation and observation! If
the Pharisees were wrong, then this statement of Paul's would be
an out-and-out LIE!
KEITH HUNT:
Notice the words that William D. emphasizes "TAUGHT ..... PERFECT
MANNER OF THE LAW...." Then he tells you that this means "he was
taught the Law of God perfectly,as a Pharisee...." But to do my
own emphasis PAUL DID NOT SAY HE WAS TAUGHT THE LAW OF GOD
PERFECTLY as a Pharisee!!
He said, look at it, see it again friends,".....brought
up.....at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the
perfect manner of the law OF THE FATHERS." The words "of God" are
NOT THERE! And that is a BIG difference, for to be taught the
perfect law of the fathers, say your fathers, your religious
teachers, and taught the Law of God perfectly, could be as far
apart as night is from day, as black is from white, as truth is
from error.
We have seen the plain truth from the words of Christ that the
Scribes and Pharisees were so far away from the correct
understanding of the Word of God that they were not only not
going to enter the Kingdom of God themselves, but those they
converted to follow them would not enter either. With all of that
(study again Barclay's comments no Mat.23:3) how is it possible
for Paul to have been taught by the Pharisee Gamaliel, the Law of
God perfectly? He of course COULD NOT HAVE BEEN!!
And Paul himself acknowledged that all the teaching he had BEFORE
Christ came into his life was just DUNG - worthless, see
Philippians 3:7,8.
Paul tells us that the gospel he preached was "not after men" -
he did not receive it from men, nor was he taught it from the
mouth of men, but "by the revelation of Jesus Christ"
(Gal.l:ll,12).
Now ask yourself this question: if Paul was taught the Law of God
perfectly by the Pharisees, at the feet of the leading Pharisee
of the day, Gamaliel, then what need did Jesus have to teach him?
Paul, according to Dankenbring, already understood the law of God
perfectly so why did Jesus have to take Paul off to Arabia to
teach him? See Gal.1:15-17.
The phrase "perfect manner of the law of the fathers" is
explained to us in other words by Paul in the book of Galatians.
Notice it. "...for you have heard of my conversation in time
past, in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted
the church of God, and wasted it. And profited in the Jews'
religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more
exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers" (Gal.
l:13-14).
Read these verses in a modern translation. Many give "Jews
religion" as "Judaism" - what Paul profited in. What he was
exceedingly zealous in, what he was taught according to the
perfect manner of the law by Gamaliel, was "the TRADITIONS OF MY
FATHERS." In Acts he said "of the fathers" in Galatians he put it
"of my fathers" but both times Paul was saying the same thing, he
was taught by the sect of the Pharisees the perfect traditions
and manner of the teachers and ancestors of Judaism. He was
zealous in following the Pharisees way of teaching the law
according to their ancestral fathers. And as we have see, many of
the teachings and practices of that sect was "way off beam" -
just like their modern follower Dankenbring and their children
the Orthodox Messianic Jews.
We must not read the Bible with blinkers on. we must we willing
to read the WHOLE bible and the WHOLE writings of Paul. If you do
not read ALL of Paul, I guarantee you can make Paul say just
about anything, even of course to WILDLY contradicting HIMSELF!
DANKENBRING CONTINUES:
Was Paul a LIAR? On another occasion, Paul said to the Sanhedrin
or Council, "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a
Pharisee" (Acts 23:6). Paul obviously was not embarrassed to have
been a Pharisee -- for like the other Pharisees, he believed in
the hope of the resurrection, which the apostate Sadducees denied
(verses 7-9).
KEITH HUNT:
I have in this edition given you a very full explanation in
regards to Paul's words "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee,"
but will add yet more to what others have written.
Turn to the book of Acts - read verse 7 of chapter six. The
Temple still stood in Jerusalem, the whole temple rites continued
as before, nothing had come to an end, the priesthood was still
functioning in their duties. Nothing is said in this verse to
indicate that the priests who were obedient to the faith gave up
the priesthood and its functions. As many commentators have
said., the early Church of the apostles would have been looked
upon as just another Jewish sect of the day. The Christian church
did not set itself against all that Judaism stood for, taught or
practiced and this is clearly proved by Acts 6:7.
A great company of the priests became believers in Jesus. Now if
any of these priest found themselves in the "hot seat" that Paul
found himself in Acts 23:6, would it have been proper for them to
have used their position as a priest to get out of their tight
spot? Would it have been a lie for them to have said, "Men and
brethren, I am a Priest, the son of a Priest, of the hope and
resurrection of the dead I am called in question."? Why of coarse
it would have been legitimate for them so to have said they were
Christians but they were still priests. Their upbringing was in
the priesthood, their fathers were priests, their education was
temple service, even if they had retired from active duty they
were still within their rights to have said "I am a priest, the
son of a priest." Saying this does not imply they agreed with the
other priests in ALL theological beliefs. Nor does it imply they
would have been following all the practices of the other priests
that did not believe in Christ and His resurrection. It would
have been a statement that they were of the ancestry of the
priesthood and so were a priest. Nothing of a lie or nothing
deceitful at all, if they had said those kinds of things in the
same predicament as Paul found himself in.
So it was with Paul, he was of the ancestry of the Pharisee sect
and so a Pharisee. Paul was in his legal right within the Jewish
society to still say he was a Pharisee even when he followed and
was a part of the new sect of the disciples of Christ.
Again we need to remember the status of the Christian community
within Judaism at this point in history. It would have been
regarded by all - Jews, Gentiles and the Romans - as a part of
Judaism with a few different ideas such as Jesus as the Messiah
and His resurrection from death to eternal immortality. This
truth is verified by the fact that MANY of the sect of the
Pharisees also BELIEVED and were a part of the New Testament
Church, SEE IT, MARK IT FRIENDS.... Acts 15:5.
The Church was growing, not only in numbers but in understanding
of truth, and there were differences of opinions on certain
matters and God was leading with His Spirit to the correct
answers. But notice, Luke(the writer of Acts) did not think it
strange or a "no,no" to still classify and call some of the
believers "Pharisees" or "of the sect of sect of the Pharisees."
Would they have called themselves Pharisees if under the specific
circumstance that Paul found himself under? Of course they could
have, just as Paul at one time did. They would have not been
telling a lie. Luke did not tell a lie when he called SOME in the
Church by the name of "thee sect of the Pharisees."
Again you need to have no tunnel vision when you read the Bible.
What W.D. is doing here is leading you down the garden path into
the bramble bush by focussing on just a few verses and leading
you to a certain conclusion that he wants you to conclude from
just a few certain verses. What he does not want you to see is
where Luke called certain ones who "believed" and were in the
Church of God ..."the sect of the Pharisees."
Very clever on Dankenbring's part but alas it takes you into the
ditch of false deception and false doctrines.
DANKENBRING CONTINUES:
Paul wrote to the Philippians about hiss religious training and
upbringing. He declared, "If any other man thinketh that he has
whereof he might trust in the flesh, I wore: Circumcised the
eight day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an
Hebrew of the Hebrews; AS TOUCHING THE LAW, A PHARISEE;
concerning zeal, persecuting the church; TOUCHING THE
RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS IN THE LAW, BLAMELESS" (Philippians
3:4-6).
But how could this be? If the Pharisees were IN ERROR on
Pentecost and its calculation, then Paul could not have been
"blameless" as concerns the Law of God, the divine instructions
for Pentecost! If the Sadducean reckoning was correct, then the
Pharisees had to be wrong, making Paul himself in error, and
certainly NOT "blameless"! Therefore, did Paul then lie when he
made this clear and obvious declaration?
The Greek word for "blameless" here is "amemptos" and means,
"irreproachable, faultless, unblamable." Thayer's Greek English
Lexicon defines the word, "blameless, deserving no censure; free
from fault or defect." The same word is used in Luke 1:6 of the
parents of John the Baptist:
"And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the
commandments and ordinances of the Lord BLAMELESS."
Obviously, they observed Pentecost on Sivan 6, reckoning it
like the Pharisees did!
KEITH HUNT:
Paul gives us how he was taught as touching the law (William
D. even emphasizes it) - a PHARISEES! His understanding of the
law was from the point of interpretation as the Pharisees saw it,
and I have shown you that even they did not agree among
themselves, but had two theological schools that argued
between themselves as to the meaning of parts of the law. W.D.
does NOT want you to know this, if he himself even know that
Jewish fact of their history. If he does know it, he is going to
keep that truth hidden from you, for then his arguments would
have a gaping hole in them right away.
So Paul was BLAMELESS as touching the righteousness which is
in the law, but the preceding words of his explains his
"blameless" statement. Does he say he had the perfect
righteousness of God? Does he say he had full and complete and
perfect understanding in the law of the Lord? NO! He says NO SUCH
THING!
Dankenbring and his tunnel vision does not see the next verses,
nor does he give them to you (possibly hoping you will not
bother to open your Bible and read them these verses in their
context). Read the following verses my friends, verse 7 he says
that what he attained under the teaching of the Pharisees and
other national traits, he counted as LOSS for Christ. For the
KNOWLEDGE of Christ (and His Spirit that leads into all truth)
Paul counted his past attainments as DUNG in verse 8.
Paul wanted to be found in Christ - so that "not having mine OWN
righteousness, which is of the law" - aaahhh! There it is,
whatever righteousness of the law that he was blameless in, it
was his OWN righteousness and not that of God's or Christ's. He
had been taught the Pharisees righteousness of the law, that he
in verse 9 calls "mine own righteousness" and sure, as far as
that went he was blameless. He may have been able to keep that
kind of righteousness perfectly, just like the great Job was
blameless also - both men blameless in their OWN standards of how
THEY understood the righteousness of law. Yes, and even God might
have claimed that in THEIR framework as they saw it, they were
perfect. God said that Job was perfect and upright, one that
feared God and eschewed evil (Job 1). But did that mean Job was
all he needed to be ot all he should have been. Did that mean Job
was fully instructed in GOD AND HIS HOLY WAYS AND LAWS. Did it
mean Job REALLY KNEW God? Or was it that he knew God in a "human
teaching form" only, and was yes, perfect and upright in that
human way? The LATTER is the real answer as Job himself tells us
in his own words in chapter 42. "I have HEARD OF YOU BY THE
HEARING OF THE EAR (what man teaches about you and your holy
ways) BUT ***NOW*** MINE EYE SEES YOU, *** WHEREFORE I ABHOR
MYSELF AND REPENT IN DUST AND ASHES***
Paul was in many ways a NT era JOB! He was perfect in the laws of
"the fathers" BUT what was the ways of "the fathers" as a
Pharisee people, all those ways, when he REALLY CAME TO SEE GOD
AND CHRIST, he counted as DUNG, in order to WIN CHRIST, to REALLY
be a Christian and to REALLY KNOW GOD!!
Jesus told His disciples that if the righteousness they had DID
NOT exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, THEY
should in no case enter into the Kingdom of God" (Mat. 5:20).
If the Pharisees had the correct righteousness which was in the
law, if they were blameless in their understanding, teaching, and
practices of the LAW OF GOD (not "the fathers"), WHY did Jesus
tell His disciples they had to do better than the Scribes and
Pharisees if they wanted to enter the Kingdom?
Obviously from the context of Philippians 3 and the rest of the
NT, Paul was only blameless in following the teachings and
practices of the human righteousness that the Pharisees
established in THEIR interpretation of the law.
Notice how clever Dankenbring is: "If the Pharisees were in
error on Pentecost and its calculation, then Paul could not have
been 'blameless' as concerns THE LAW OF GOD...." He has CHANGED
what Paul actually said to what he wants YOU to believe Paul
said. Paul never used the words "law of God" in this section of
Philippians. It is just not there! Of course not, because Paul
never ever taught anywhere that the Pharisees and Gamaliel his
teacher had the PERFECT UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETATION of the
LAW OF GOD!!
To the CONTRARY, he showed that when the full knowledge and
understanding of the law came to him he found he was under the
penalty of death. Under what he knew of the law as taught by the
Pharisees, he thought he was okay - alive - in right standing
with God, but when Christ revealed to him the real meaning and
intent of the commandments "sin revived,and I died"(Romans
7:7-9). Read that friends, MARK IT, what could be plainer here in
what Paul is teaching about himself as a Pharisee and then as
when he REALLY CAME TO KNOW GOD AND CHRIST.
Clearly Paul was not blameless when it came to the Law of God.
When he only knew life as a Pharisee he thought he was ALIVE, he
thought he was blameless before God, but he was, as the saying
does "as guilty as sin." He was a DEAD mam - heading for death,
until Christ came into his life and the true righteousness of God
and the commandment which were ordained to life. He had been
under the righteousness of the Pharisees, DECEIVED, blinded - sin
had taken the opportunity by the instrument of the commandments,
to SLAY him (Romans 7:9-11).
Paul was indeed blameless, irreproachable, faultless, where it
came to judging him by the standards and precepts and
righteousness that the Pharisees "set for themselves" based on
how they interpreted the law, but he was a DEAD man - a walking
dead man, and very much to BLAME when it came to the Law of God.
It makes no difference that this same Greek word for "blameless"
is used in Luke 1:6 in reference to the parents of John the
Baptist. That Greek word of itself is NOT THE KEY! It is the
CONTEXT and other words used along with it that MAKE the
DIFFERENCE and hold the TRUTH.
John the Baptist's parents were righteous and walked in all the
commandments and ordinances BLAMELESS, because they did it BEFORE
GOD! They walked, notice it, "in all the commandments and
ordinances of THE LORD..." The words "God" and "the Lord" are
USED HERE!! Paul never used such words in connection with his
walking in the law as a deceived Pharisee who did not know the
Son of God.
Because the parents of the Baptist did walk blamelessly in the
law of the Lord, they would NOT have observed Pentecost on Sivan
6, nor the Passover on Abib 15, as William D. does!!
I'll tell you boldly and categorically Dankenbring is VERY WRONG
ON THOSE TWO DOCTRINES OF GOD!!
DANKENBRING CONTINUES:
Was Paul a "Liar"? We have a conundrum here -- a paradox. If the
Worldwide Church of God is correct in observing Pentecost
following the Sadducean method of counting, and therefore
observing a different day, then they are calling the apostle
Paul a LIAR! likewise, the Church of God International, under
Garner Armstrong and Ronald Dart (remember this was written
before the WCG disintegrated and went Protestant in theology and
before the CGI broke up) by following the Sadducces, are also
calling Paul a despicable LIAR. Furthermore, Gerald Flurry, and
the so-called "Philadelphia Church of God," by also following the
reckoning of the Sadducees and observing their "Pentecost," is
also branding the apostle as a LIAR and false witness!
Who are the REAL "liars"?
Of course, as an apostle of God and Christ, it would not he
proper for Paul to lie. Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken
(John 10:35), and said to the Father, "Thy Word is truth" (John
17:17) -- and part of that Word of God is the writings and
epistles of the apostle Paul -- inspired Scripture given by
inspiration of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Therefore, Paul could NOT
have "lied"!
KEITH HUNT:
Of course Paul did not lie, but W.D. by clever words and hoping
you will not take the time to look up the passages he quotes and
see them in their context, and hoping you are a person that does
NOT READ the NT and especially ALL the writings of Paul, tries to
get you to be tunnel visioned on these passages and so fall into
the hole of believing Paul was, as a Christian still a FULL
PRACTICING Pharisee as he was before he became a Christian.
Some of W.D. arguments are so silly and weak if you are a reader
of the WHOLE NT that most would not bother to give their time in
answering him.
W.DANKENBRING:
Peter told us about Paul's writings, "And account that the
longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved
brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath
written unto you; as also in ALL, HIS EPISTLES, speaking in them
of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood,
which they that are unlearned and unstable WREST, AS THEY DO THE
OTHER SCRIPTURES, unto their own destruction" (2 Pet.3:15-16).
Surely, then since Paul's writings we here referred to as
"SCRIPTURE," and God CANNOT LIE (Titus 1:2), there is no way that
Paid could have lied in his epistles! But if this is the case,
their notice the predicament that those who REFUSE to accept the
Pharisee's reckoning of the Day of Pentecost face! Notice. how
their reasoning leads to a DIRECT CONTRADICTION of Scripture --
and makes a LIAR out or the apostle Paul! For by following the
Sadducces, they make the apostle Paul out to be a liar, who
followed the practices of the PHARISEES, and who said he did so
"BLAMELESSLY" -- who said, furthermore, that he was TAUGHT by
Gamaliel, the leading Pharisee of his day, "according to the
PERFECT MANNER OF THE LAW"!
Who is right? Paul, who wrote Scripture? Or his critics
nay-sayers?
KEITH HUNT:
Paul did write scripture. He was an apostle of God. He was
inspired by the Holy Spirit of the Lord. He said not lie! Paul
never said or wrote that as a Christian he "followed the practice
of the Pharisees." What he did when unconverted as a Pharisee was
blameless "according to the perfect manner of the law OF THE
FATHERS." Notice how William D. above LEAVES OUT THE WORDS "of
the fathers" to lead you to believe Paul is talking about God's
law and not the law of the fathers, whom I have shown you by
Paul's own words were Gamaliel and other ancestral teachers of
the Pharisees.
Dankenbring hopes you will not look up the verses in the Bible,
and just kinda say, "Wow....William D. has something here, Paul
was blameless in the law OF GOD as a Pharisee, so it must be
correct, we are to follow the teachings of the Pharisees" (which
today would mean you follow the Messianic Pharisee Jews, just as
some of them tell you that is what you should follow, as we saw
at the very start of this 5 part study).
DANKENBRING CONCLUDES:
Isn't the answer perfectly clear? Jesus Christ Himself stated
plainly, " The Scribes and Pharisees SIT IN MOSES' SEAT: All
therefore whatsoever THEY [not the Sadducees] bid you observe,
that observe and DO"(Matthew 23:2,3. The Pharisees were the true
authorities for interpreting the laws of God -- we true
custodians of the "oracles of God" (Romans 3:1-2). Isn't it about
time we give them a little respect for the good that they did,
preserving the Laws of God and the correct date and method of
calculating Pentecost? To observe Pentecost on any other day than
the day Christ Himself approved, is sacrilege -- an abomination
in the sight of God and a plain inexcusable violation of His
commandment!
KEITH HUNT:
The answer is perfectly CLEAR when you read the whole New
Testament and take off the blinkers. We have show you what Jesus
was saying when He said, "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses'
seat." Did the apostles and disciples OBEY, and OBSERVE, and DO
all that the Pharisees and Scribes bade them to do? The book of
ACTS gives us the truth of the matter.
After the coming of the Holy Spirit the apostles preached
POWERFULLY Jesus and His resurrection, so powerful was their
preaching that it soon stirred up the anger of the priests, ruler
of the temple, Sadducees, rulers, and elders, and scribes(Acts
4:1-7). I will prove to you shortly that among this group was the
Pharisees, who had a great deal of power and authority as William
D. would verify.
The apostles were told to leave the COUNCIL that they had been
brought before, verse 15. This council(containing the Scribes and
Pharisees that sat in Moses' seat) COMMANDED them "not to speak
at all nor teach in the name of Jesus." verse 18. Notice how
Peter and John answered them in verse 19 and 20. Did they say
"Okay, we know that you sit in Moses' seat and we were taught by
our Jesus to observe and do all whatsoever you bid us."? No they
said no such thing - they would continue to speak about the
things they had seen and heard, that is what they told this
Sanhedrin group of men.
They went back to their company and all prayed that God would
give them the BOLDNESS to speak His word. God answered and did
give them even more Spirit to speak His word boldly(verses
23-31). They did NOT obey the dictates of the Scribes and
Pharisees and the others that made up the Jewish council.
Within a short period of time they again were brought before the
COUNCIL who said they had commanded them not to teach in Jesus'
name(Acts 5:27,28). This teaching and decree from the "seat of
Moses" was not the truth of God, it was not the WORD of God, it
was not the CORRECT DOCTRINE of the Lord, and so Peter answered
and said to them, "We ought to obey God rather than men."
Now notice the proof that this council included the Pharisees.
Mark it, friend, verses 33 and 34. One of the council was Paul's
teacher, the famous Pharisee - Gamaliel. The council took his
advise but still commanded the apostles not to speak in Jesus'
name, which of course the disciples did not obey.
Obviously, even with the great power of the Holy Spirit filling
their minds, bringing to their remembrance all things that Jesus
had taught them, they did not understand Jesus' instruction in
Mat.23:2-3 to mean they should BLINDLY obey all the commands and
dictates of the Scribes and Pharisees and council that
represented the "seat of Moses."
What Jesus was telling His disciples was to respect those in the
seat of Moses and observe what they said AS LONG AS IT WAS
ACCORDING TO THE WORD AND TRUTH OF GOD. Anything less than that
they would do as Peter was inspired to tell that council "we
ought to obey God rather than men."
We also need to realize the fact that the Jewish council -
those in Moses' seat - were more than just a bunch of religious
teacher. They were the court of their society who could pass
punishment and authorize it to be carried out, they could even
pass the death sentence, but that punishment the Roman Empire
would not allow them to fulfil. Read again Acts 4:13-21 and note
verse 21. The apostles honored this authority even to the point
of submitting to BEATINGS from the council, chapter 5:40.
Yes, get that, they honored this council by willingly having the
sentence of beatings upon them!!
The Jews were custodians of the "oracles of God" but that only
meant the preservers of the WORD OF GOD whether they BELIEVED it
or not, whether they obeyed it or not, whether they understood it
or not. This was the chief advantage and profit of why God had
preserved the Jews (Rom. 3:l-4).
From all we have seen in what we have published it should be
clear to see that Jesus, Peter, John, Paul, or any other apostle
NEVER TAUGHT that "the Pharisees were the true authorities for
interpreting the laws of God" as the imagination of Dankenbring
would assert.
I see from Matthew 23 very little if any "respect" shown to the
Pharisees from the Messiah. A few were truly converted, as Paul
was, along with some others, to follow Jesus, but the majority
were the children of hell, blind guides, whited sepulchres full
of dead men's bones, serpents, children of them that killed God's
true prophets, and those who shut up the Kingdom of heaven, not
only from themselves, but from those who would enter.
NOW FRIENDS YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD "THE REST OF THE STORY" CONCERNING
PAUL AND THE PHARISEE SECT.
Someone like William Dankenbring, you need to HOLD WITH KID
GLOVES....maybe you need to think twice about whether to hold
anything from him at all.
..............
Written July 1993
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