Jesus Unloads His Seven Woes on the Pharisees and Us – His Opening Salvo.
Jesus Unloads His Seven Woes on the Pharisees and Us – His Opening Salvo (Matthew 23).
“Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ throne as the authorized interpreters of the Law. So listen and follow what they teach, but don’t do what they do, for they tell you one thing and do another. They tie on your backs an oppressive burden of religious obligations and insist that you carry it, but will never lift a finger to help ease your load.” (Matthew 23:1-4, TPT).
Chutzpah (hoots-pah) is a Yiddish word that long ago entered English usage. It is from the Hebrew word, “hutspah,” which means insolent or audacious. Chutzpah is a neutral word that can be either positive or negative. Chutzpah can be righteous or unrighteous, holy or unholy. It is an idea difficult to define, so there are a lot of synonyms for it, especially in the biblical sense: spiritual audacity; brazen gall; tenacious stubbornness; headstrong persistence; outrageous guts; shameless nerve; feisty assertiveness; brazen impudence; unyielding boldness; courageous spine; expectant defiance. The Holy Scriptures, both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, are overflowing with examples of holy chutzpah. One wonders not only if it’s a job requirement for saints and prophets, but also a faith requirement for all believers. In fact, God seems to love chutzpah in us when it is based on our ultimate trust in Him and His character, our unselfish motives, our yearning for justice and mercy. Chutzpah in front of others becomes holy when it is done in obedience to the Lord and is an outworking of our faith in Him. As Rabbi Schulweiss once said, “Spiritual audacity toward God finds a place of honor in Jewish religious thought.” The rabbis of old have always insisted that chutzpah is a valid expression of faith. Just a quick glimpse at the Gospels reveals that Jesus and His followers fully embraced the ancient Jewish ethic of holy chutzpah. When Jesus saw chutzpah in action, He usually said things like, “Great is your faith!” Maybe Christian scholar Dr. Brad Young said it best. “True faith requires bold perseverance. Sometimes it is expressed by brazen impudence. Faith can be defined as chutzpah. Persevere with unyielding tenacity.” (Brad Young, Jesus the Jewish Theologian).
In Matthew 23, Jesus demonstrated the spiritual audacity of taking on the religious leaders of His day. To many of the listeners of His diatribe, His words must have been outrageous. But Jesus had the guts and the nerve to confront the religious establishment, even as He included name-calling and divine judgment onto the heads of all those leaders of the Temple. This indeed took some holy chutzpah. Jesus had what it took to display his tenacious pursuit of biblical righteousness.
“Woe unto you“: What sorrow awaits you; alas for you; distress is headed your way; you’re asking for trouble; grief is coming for you; how unfortunate you are; your destiny will involve nothing but suffering; you’re hopeless.
“Hypocrite“: Pretender; fraud; phony; imposter; play-actor; fake.
Scribe: ‘Men of Letters,’ since the Greek word for scribe is “gramma,” the source for our word “grammar;” religious scholar; teacher of religious law; lawyer; interpreter of Torah; member of Temple leadership; associated with the Pharisees because most of the scribes belonged to the Pharisee party.
Pharisees: A popular religious party operating in 1st century Israel. They were respected for their scholarly knowledge of Scripture and for their interpretation of the written word and oral law. They were highly influential in the local synagogues. They were laymen, not priests, and came from all classes of people. They believed in the bodily resurrection of the dead and eternal life, which was earned by good works according to Mosaic Law. They emphasized extreme detail regarding observance to the Jewish law, which made them separatists from anything non-Jewish. They were committed to righteousness and obeying all of God’s laws, but often found themselves following the letter of the law at the expense of the spirit of the law, blind to the law’s true intent.
The Seven Woes: This number signifies wholeness, perfection, completeness. It is St. Matthew’s favorite number, for example there are seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, forgiveness not 7 but 77 times, there is a natural division of his gospel into seven sections, and now there are seven woes placed upon the religious leaders from Jesus.
On Jesus as the Angry Prophet. With the seven woes in Matthew 23, Jesus was living into His OT prophetic style of communication. And He enjoyed the perfect backdrop for the Woes… the Temple. Isaiah was the best-known prophet in the Hebrew Bible who employed a “woe unto you” confrontation. In Isaiah’s case, he was calling the people of Judah to task for their exploiting of others, their drunkenness, their pride and arrogance, their confusing of moral standards, and their perverting of justice. Jesus used this “woeful” prophetic formula to critique not the people of Israel but the Temple leadership for their mean-spirited hypocrisy and their superficial, self-righteous ambition. There are actually eight woes technically in this Matthew passage, but one of them wasn’t in the original manuscripts, and so scholars say it was added to the gospel after first being written. So this eighth woe (“you devour widows’ houses“) is not considered an official woe of Jesus. He proclaimed seven woes, the perfect number, the complete number. This passage is Jesus’ most famous attack on the scribes and Pharisees, and has been called “the Grand Critique.” He didn’t mince words, He didn’t hold back in His stinging accusations of the Temple leadership. He basically excoriated them, and straightforwardly told them, I’ve had it with you! I’ve lost my patience with you! You are headed for disaster if you keep leading my people astray!
“Everything the Pharisees do is done to be seen by others; they love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogue, and they love being greeted deferentially in the marketplaces and being called ‘Rabbi, my great one, my master, my teacher.’ But the greatest among you must be your servant, for whoever promotes himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be promoted.” (Matthew 23:5-12).
The Opening Salvo. If you want to know what makes God angry, read on. Jesus is all fired up after a series of confrontations with the Temple leadership… the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. He knows they are plotting to entrap Him, and are trying to figure out ways to stop His ministry dead in its tracks. In Matthrew 23 we find Jesus verbally cleansing the Temple. He did verbally what He had just done physically, clearing the Temple of unworthy riffraff and a host of impurities. Jesus had several pointed criticisms of them here at the start in the first few verses. And He was only getting warmed up! He threw in these zingers even before moving on to His prophetic woes. He accused them of not bothering to practice what they preach, of knowing the Scriptures but not living by them. He accused them of being pretentious, of being impressive at the expense of being spiritual. He accused them of living in a “religious fashion show” (E. Peterson), of seeking the attention of the people and looking good religiously. Jesus accused them of seeking honor and privilege, of welcoming impressive titles like father, master, and rabbi, titles that are intended to be used for God and not them. He accused them of seeking the admiration of the people instead of directing all the praise to God. Jesus closes this stinging warm-up with accusations of haughtiness, of being vainglorious, of exalting themselves over those who are not as “holy.” Jesus essentially said that, because their eyes are only on themselves, they have lost sight of God. Jesus was worried about the spiritual welfare of the people as well, afraid that the leaders’ spiritual pride and unfruitfulness might spread to the people of Israel.
The Pharisee in Me. Can anyone dare claim that these accusations are irrelevant to us today? If we are honest with ourselves, we all have pieces of the Pharisee in us. As author/musician John Fischer put it, we are all recovering Pharisees. In each of the seven woes in this series, we will address important questions to ask ourselves as we look at the Pharisee in Jesus’ time and our own inner Pharisee right now.
The Holy Chutzpah of Christ. One could survey the gospels and notice any number of incidents when Jesus showed His chutzpah… When He was 12 years old and surprisingly told His frantic parents not to worry and that He was simply about His Father’s business; the temptation in the wilderness against the Evil One; the casting out of demons as He confronted the wild demoniac, the infamous “man of the tombs”; the fashioning of a whip and driving out the moneychangers from the Temple while the Temple authorities stood there shaking their heads; the audacious diatribe against the Pharisees in Matthew 23. There are dozens of other examples, of course, but His face-off with Pilate while Jesus was in a weakened condition is especially impressive (John 18 & 19). During His ministry on earth, Jesus revealed Himself to be the Author of chutzpah, the original prototype of what righteous chutzpah looks like. In His zeal and headstrong boldness, Jesus was in many ways the ultimate Holy Fool. And we praise God for that.