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"Preach The Word"

Caustic Controversies

Text:
Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All
therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and
do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
. . . But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither
go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to
go in (MATTHEW 23:1-3, 13).

Seven times in Matthew 23:1-13 we hear Jesus speaking out
against the Pharisees and proclaiming woes against them. Some
have suggested that perhaps Matthew was more cynical than
anyone else concerning the Pharisees, but Luke also lists the
same seven "woes" from the lips of Jesus.

The seeds of strife between Jesus and those in authority among
the Jews had already been sown—". . . they were offended at
him," we find, as early as Mark 6:3. This offense was not born
of one occasion; it was bred in their sin and magnified and
mirrored in His perfection.

As He entered into Jerusalem on His day of triumph, it was
sometime in the morning of the first day of the week. After being
hailed by the people as the Messiah, Jesus and His disciples
then went to the Temple, evidently prior to returning to Bethany.
Jesus observed the activities of the Temple but said nothing.
He probably spent the nights of that week in the home of Mary
and Martha and their brother Lazarus. With perhaps several
million visitors in Jerusalem, there would have been difficulty
in obtaining lodging—and there never was any price in the
Master's pocket for a place to stay. The place near Jerusalem
where He was always most welcome, and which He seemed to
enjoy most, was this home in Bethany. It was close enough
(about two miles) so that He could walk into Jerusalem easily.
On Monday He evidently went back into the Temple to cleanse
it. Tuesday was a time of didactic discussions with the scribes
and Pharisees, and of teaching His disciples and all the people
who desired to listen to Him. Four things which He did on
Monday and Tuesday determined His death sentence. He crossed
the Rubicon, so to speak; He went so far in angering the authorities
that there was no turning back.

Those who from their eminence of position looked out over
Jerusalem—the priests and Sanhedrin—were seeking an opportunity
to put Him to death. In the equivalent of "smoke-filled
rooms” was made a temporary political alliance between Pharisees
and Sadducees—a strange marriage of those who usually
would have nothing to do with one another. The necessity, as
they saw it, for the death of Jesus prompted their only unanimous
action. Also, the Roman government and these Jewish leaders,
usually at enmity, moved together in sentencing to death Jesus of
Nazareth.

The Master came to Jerusalem fully recognizing that for Him
it was the beginning of the countdown to Calvary. He who was
the city's Prince of peace, although considered its enemy, brought
temporary peace to the warring factions which joined together in
their hatred of Him.

I. CLEANSING THE TEMPLE
Jesus had offended the powerful few on other occasions, but
nothing that He ever did so angered all the rulers as did His
cleansing of the Temple. As He moved in on the money-changers,
the power of righteousness was in His hands. Imagine the overturning
tables, coins spilling and rolling across the floor, cages of
pigeons breaking open, the birds flopping in confusion through
the air, people running to and fro, trying to escape—not a sword
or a spear, but the personal power and authority of the Son of
God! So many would not have run from one Man had not their
hearts condemned them. Truth and righteousness are mighty
weapons. Truth may be defied but never completely crushed.

In Isaiah, God had said, "My house is the house of prayer"
(56:7), and later in Jeremiah, "Is this house, which is called by
my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?" ( 7:11; see also
LUKE 19:46).

Why was it necessary for the Temple to be cleansed? Some
misuses that began because of convenience had degenerated into
religious racketeering. In the arrangement of the Temple, the
outer section was the Court of the Gentiles—they could go no
farther into the holy precincts. Then there was the Jewish court
and the court into which the priests went to make the sacrifices.
Into the Holiest, only the high priest could enter, and that once
a year, to offer the blood of the sacrifice unto God for the cleansing
of the people's sin. These divisions were made by the direct
commandment of God.

One reason for the state of the outer court was that every
adult male Jew except the priests had to pay a temple tax of
one-half shekel annually, much like the poll-tax system. Just
before the Passover, there was only one place where the temple
tax could be paid, and that was in the Temple itself. People came
from all over the civilized world at the time of Passover and they
brought with them many different types of currency. Only two
kinds of coins were acceptable in the Temple, however, because
all others were imprinted with the image of some Roman emperor,
and the Jews believed that those coins violated the second
commandment, a prohibition against making any graven image.
Thus, in the Gentile court men had set up stalls to exchange the
various monies for coins that were acceptable in the Temple. In
the beginning the arrangement was meant to be of service to the
people.

The required half-shekel was worth about two days' manual
labor in Judaea, but the money-changers set the rates of exchange
to suit themselves, and sometimes a man would have to pay twice
as much by the time he exchanged his foreign money. In Jesus'
time, all of the businesses in the Temple precincts had become
the personal graft-system of Annas and his sons ( one of his sonsin-
law, Caiaphas, was high priest at the time when Jesus was
crucified). Under their orders, the money-changers started measuring
the weight of the coins and bickering about whether a coin
was worth its face value since it had been worn thin and did not
weigh as much as when it was first minted.

There were also the sacrificial animals. The lambs offered had
to be "without spot or blemish," according to the command of
God which pointed to Jesus, the perfect Lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. If a family was unable to afford a lamb,
two pigeons were acceptable sacrifices. At first, people brought
animals from their homes or bought them in the city, but every
sacrifice had to pass the inspection of the priests, and those who
served under Annas had difficulty in finding an acceptable sacrifice.

A pigeon could be bought outside the Temple for nine
shekels—but the inspector could always find a flaw. On the inside,
you could buy a pigeon for fifteen shekels—already inspected.
Greed and graft were rampant in the Temple of God!
When Jesus came, He cleansed His house. He moved the
racketeers out of the Court of the Gentiles so that it could be
truly a house of prayer. If you have never been in an oriental
market place you can scarcely imagine the bickering and raising
of voices. That sort of loud haggling going on in the court of
the house of God made true worship impossible. Jesus probably
had to shout at the top of His voice to be heard: "This is to be a
house of prayer; this is to be a place of quiet! This is where God
dwells, and your robbers in priests' robes have made it a den of
thieves!" He drove them out with power in His eyes and a whip
in His hand.

It angered them so terribly, of course, because it hurt them
in their sensitive pocketbooks. As far as they were concerned,
Jesus' cleansing of the Temple sealed His doom. The only thing
that saved Him until Friday was the acclamation of the crowds
only two days before. The rulers of Israel had been dealing with
human emotions long enough to know they would have to wait
until the excitement died down before they seized Him.

II. CHALLENGING HIS AUTHORITY
Tuesday He came into the outer Temple again, knowing that
He would be under attack. His enemies were waiting for Him;
they had spent the night plotting. The best prosecutors of the
day were on hand, and they were sure they could trap Him with
questions He could not possibly answer.

With the first question they challenged His authority. They
said, "By what authority do You do these things?"—referring to
the previous day. They were the ones with authority over the
Temple, but He had acted as if it were His Temple and He had
the authority. They said to Him, in effect, "Who has appointed
you? Where are Your credentials? Give us Your search warrant!"
Jesus did not hedge with them. He used a perfect example of
a debater's prerogative, a teacher's right. He was not evasive; it
was legitimate that He should answer by asking them a question.
"By what authority did John baptize?" He countered. His question
was quite pertinent to the subject because it implied very
clearly that He was, in effect, claiming the same authority as John
the Baptist. They dared not answer that question. If they admitted
John's divine commission, they opened the door for Jesus, and
if they denied that John was a prophet sent from God, the multitudes
would be greatly offended.

III. CYNICAL QUESTIONS
Then followed a cynical controversy. Besides the temple tax
already mentioned, the Jews were forced to pay tribute to Caesar.
God had not commanded that. The scribes and Pharisees said
to Jesus, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar?" If He said it
was, the Jews would hate Him; if He said it wasn't, the Romans
would consider Him a lawbreaker. It was a clever trap, but Jesus
was not caught in it. He asked for and was given a coin—a
Roman coin with the image of the emperor on one side. He took
the coin in His hand and showed it to them as He answered,
"Surrender unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God
that which is God's." The trap had not worked.

One of the differences between the Sadducees and the Pharisees
was that the former did not believe in any kind of life after
death. They believed that when a man died he was finished, forever
gone, and that there was no spiritual life which continued
after physical death. Therefore the Sadducees were asking the
second question with tongue in cheek: "If a man died, and his
brother married the widow, and he died, and the next younger
brother married the widow, through seven brothers, then whose
wife will she be in the hereafter?" They were careful to say, of
course, that it was only a hypothetical case.

In answer, Jesus began to talk to them not about immortality,
but about the resurrection. There is a vast difference between
the Grecian concept of immortality and the Christian concept of
the resurrection. Plato and Socrates and the other great philosophers
speculated about the persistence of influence and the
transmutation of life into some other shape; but Jesus spoke of
breaking open the grave—men walking about in recognizable
bodies and living forever. This was something the Sadducees
could not comprehend. The disciples also had difficulty with it,
even after Jesus Himself rose from the dead.

IV. CENTRAL COMMANDMENT
There was one other discussion on this day of questions. They
said to Him, in effect, "All right, if we can't trap You on these,
we will ask You another. Which is the most important commandment
of all?"

Jesus promptly quoted to them one of the most familiar Old
Testament passages, Deuteronomy 6:4-5: "Hear, 0 Israel: the
Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and with all thy strength." ( MARK 12:3o). He went on to
add, when they thought He was through, "And the second is like,
namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" ( v. 31),
quoting from Leviticus 19:18. The law they knew, but love they
did not understand. Interpreting regulations, weighing coins—
that was their concept of obedience to the law of God.

One of the scribes who raised the question admitted that Jesus
gave a great explanation: "Well, Master, thou hast said the truth:
for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love
him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with
all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour
as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices"
( MARK 12:32-33 ). Jesus replied to that man: "Thou art not far
from the kingdom of God" (v. 34).

The Bible says that they were quiet then. They were afraid
to speak because He had successfully answered their questions
and passed their tests; they had not been able to trip Him up.
Those who came to Him demanding to know by what authority
He drove out the merchants from the Temple had to let Him
walk free that day.

Every man has a right to question, and Jesus did not deny
anyone that right, but He was through answering questions when
the day was over. Later on, when He was on trial before Pilate
and the other rulers, He opened not His mouth.
May we not be as those who cried, "Hosanna!" on Sunday and
yet crucified Him on Friday! May we not be as those who measured
His popularity on Sunday and tried to discredit Him on
Monday and Tuesday, cynical and critical in their greediness and
covetousness, stubbornly evil in their hearts! May we not be unbelievers
in the resurrection, or pharisaical in our questioning,
but with open minds receive His teachings!

Sermon from R. Earl Allen