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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 11:37

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And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat.

37-54. The Invitation of the Pharisee and the open Rupture.

37. besought ] Rather, asked.

to dine with him ] The meal was not dinner ( deipnon), but an earlier, lighter, and more informal meal ( ariston).

he went in, and sat down to meat ] The words imply that immediately He entered He sat down to table. The meal was merely some slight refreshment in the middle of the day, and probably our Lord was both suffering from hunger after His long hours of teaching, and was also anxious to save time.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And as he spake – While he was addressing the people, and particularly while he was reproving that generation and declaring its crimes.

A certain Pharisee – The Pharisees had been particularly referred to in the discourse of the Saviour recorded in the previous verses. This one, perhaps, having felt particularly the force of the remarks of Jesus, and being desirous of being alone with him, invited him to go home with him. There is little doubt that this was for the purpose of drawing him away from the people; that he did it with a malignant intention, perhaps with a design to confute Jesus in private, or to reprove him for thus condemning the whole nation as he did. He might have seen that those who attacked Jesus publicly were commonly unsuccessful, and he desired. probably, to encounter him more privately.

Besought him – Asked him.

To dine with him – The Jews, as well as the Greeks and Romans, had but two principal meals. The first was a slight repast, and was taken about ten or eleven oclock of our time, and consisted chiefly of fruit, milk, cheese, etc. The second meal was partaken of about three oclock P. M., and was their principal meal. The first is the one here intended.

He went in – Though he knew the evil design of the Pharisee, yet he did not decline the invitation. He knew that it might afford him an opportunity to do good. These two things are to be observed in regard to our Saviours conduct in such matters:

That he did not decline an invitation to dine with a man simply because he was a Pharisee, or because he was a wicked man. Hence, he was charged with being gluttonous, and a friend of publicans and sinners, Mat 11:19.
He seized upon all occasions to do good. He never shrank from declaring the truth, and making such occasions the means of spreading the gospel. If Christians and Christian ministers would follow the example of the Saviour always, they would avoid all scandal, and might do even in such places a vast amount of good.

Sat down – Reclined at the table. See the notes at Mat 23:6.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Luk 11:37-39

A certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with him.

—

The Pharisees reproved

I. THE INVITATION.

1. The prominence with which the Pharisees figure in our Lords life is noticeable.

(1) In view of their profession of preeminent piety.

(2) In view of their scrupulous conformity to all the outward forms of religion.

(3) In view of their bitter emnity against Jesus, and their craft and various forms of cunning used to ensnare Him.

(4) What a commentary on the powerlessness as well as hollowness of attention on the mere formalities of religion.

II. OUR LORDS ACCEPTANCE OF THE INVITATION.

1. Our Lord accepted the invitation with full knowledge of the insincerity with which it was offered.

(1) But He knew it would give Him the opportunity of giving utterance to truths which the occasion would naturally call forth.

(2) May we appreciate the value of opportunity.

2. Our Lord accepted the invitation with full knowledge of the painful consequence that would follow His honest utterances on the occasion. We must not shrink on account of consequences to speak the truth which God gives.

III. THE SURPRISE OF THE PHARISEE.

1. This surprise was natural from the Pharisees standpoint.

2. And this ceremonial washing had a high moral design.

(1) To remind constantly of the need of inward purity.

(2) But its spiritual significance was lost sight of in the mere rite itself.

3. Our Lords omission to wash before the meal was premeditated.

(1) That He did nothing that was not premeditated, shows this.

(2) The moral lessons He drew which the occasion furnished Him, prove this.

(3) In our Lords life the lower was ever sacrificed for the higher.

IV. THE PRACTICAL LESSONS WHICH OUR LORD DREW.

1. From the folly and wickedness of having a form of godliness while denying its power.

2. A lesson on true cleanliness.

V. THE FEARFUL JUDGMENTS PRONOUNCED ON RELIGIOUS FORMALISTS.

1. Upon the formalists who made great pretensions to piety–the Pharisees.

2. Upon the formalists who made great pretensions to Scriptural knowledge–scribes.

3. Upon the formalists who made great pretensions to exact analysis of the law–lawyers.

Lessons:

1. In social life our Lord gives an example of impartiality in His attention and interest: publicans, sinners, Pharisees–invitations from all alike He accepted.

2. In social life our Lord gives us an example of turning every incident to practical and spiritual account.

3. In social life our Lord gives us an example of inflexible righteousness, conjoined with loving sympathy. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)

Pharisaical religion

I. THE SEVERAL SIGNS OR DEVELOPMENTS OF PHARISAICAL RELIGION.

1. The substitution of external for spiritual purity.

2. Attention to trifles may be compatible with neglect of great duties.

3. Honour is sought from men; the honour which comes from God only is despised.

4. Doctrines and practices may be taught by those who neither believe-their own doctrines nor observe their own precepts.

II. THE EVIL AND CONDEMNATION OF PHARISAIC RELIGION.

1. It is misleading to observers.

2. It is repugnant to God.

3. It is disastrous to the spiritual life of those who trust to it. Men begin by deceiving others, and end by deceiving themselves. (J. R.Thomson, M. A.)

Outward show and inward lack

It is unfortunately not difficult to find illustrations of outward show and inward lack. The beautiful ivy-covered wall which crumbles at a touch; the rosy apple worm-eaten at the core; the leafy fig-tree which yet bears no figs; the luxuriant growth which covers the morass; the poison-ivy, fair to look at but dangerous to the touch; the rustic seat, inviting to rest, from which the serpent springs up,–may serve as examples. In mediaeval writings, mention is often made of poisonous rings. Outwardly they looked like other rings, a narrow band of gold with a clear diamond set in it. But when the ring was placed on the hand a slight puncture was made from behind the gem, and a little poison injected into the finger, and so the death of the wearer was caused, What an emblem of the Pharisee! Every child knows what a sham is. Perhaps there is not one of them but has sometime received from a funny playfellow a pleasant-looking sweetmeat, which when taken into the mouth, nipped and burned the tongue. Or they may have taken up, in a friends house, what they thought was a book, and found it to be only a box imitation of one. It will be easy then to show them how the same thing appears in human things. The merchant who sells oleomargarine under the name of butter is, like his goods, a sham. The church-member who stands up staunchly for Sabbath observance and regular attendance at church, and yet during the week tells business lies and makes dishonest profits, is a sham. And the boy or girl who is known at Sunday-school as one of the best scholars, but at home is ill-natured and selfish and revengeful, is also a sham. Teach the children to be sincere. An inconsistent person is like a sum in addition, with the wrong answer at the bottom. Everybody can run up the column of figures and see how wrong the summing up is. Show how the scholars may make the sum of their life-arithmetic correct. Or the insincere person may be compared to the baskets of peaches sometimes sold at the doors–a few large, ripe peaches at the top, but, when these are lifted away, nothing but unripe or decaying fruit beneath. Who would wish his life to be like that? (Sunday School Times.)

Hypocrisy branded

Hypocrites resemble looking-glasses, which present the faces which are not in them. Oh, how desirous are men to put the fairest gloves upon the foulest hands; and the finest paint upon the rottenest posts! To counterfeit the coin of heaven, is to commit treason against the King of heaven. Who would spread a curious cloth upon a dusty table? If a mariner set sail in an unsound bottom, he may reasonably expect to lose his voyage. No wise virgin would carry a lamp without light. O professor, either get the latter or part with the former. None are so black in the eyes of the Deity as those who paint spiritual beauty for spirit A false friend is worse than an open enemy. A painted harlot is less dangerous than a painted hypocrite. A treacherous Judas is more abhorred of God than a bloody Pilate. Christians! remember the sheeps clothing will soon be stripped from the wolfs back. The velvet plaster of profession shall not always conceal the offensive ulcer of corruption. Neither the ship of formality nor hypocrisy will carry one person to the harbour of felicity. The blazing lamps of foolish virgins may light them to the bridegrooms gate, but not into his chamber Oh, what vanity it is to lop off the boughs, and leave the roots which can send forth more; or to empty the cistern, and leave the fountain running which can soon fill it again I Such may swim in the water as the visible church; but when the net is drawn to shore, they must be thrown away as bad fishes. Though the tares and the wheat may grow in the field together, yet they will not be housed in the granary together. (Archbishop Secker.)

Hypocrisy sometimes difficult to discover

Formality frequently takes its dwelling near the chambers of integrity, and so assumes its name; the soul not suspecting that hell should make so near an approach to heaven. A rotten post, though covered with gold, is more fit to be burned in the fire, than for the building of a fabric. Where there is a pure conscience, there will be a pure conversation. The dial of our faces does not infallibly show the time of day in our hearts; the humblest looks may enamel the former, while unbounded pride covers the latter. Unclean spirits may inhabit the chamber when they look not out at the window. A hypocrite may be both the fairest and the foulest creature in the world; he may be fairest outwardly in the eyes of man, and foulest inwardly in the sight of God. How commonly do such unclean swans cover their black flesh with their white feathers! Though such wear the mantle of Samuel, that should bear the name of Satan. (Archbishop Secker.)

Conventional notions of sin

If you ask the Pharisee of old what sin was–Well, he said, it is eating without washing your hands; it is drinkingwine without baying first of all strained out the gnats, for those insects are unclean, and if you should swallow any of them they will render you defiled. His repentance dealt with his having touched a Gentile, or having come on the windside of a Publican. Many in these days have the same notion, with a variation. We have read of a Spanish bandit, who, when he confessed before his father-confessor, complained that one sin hung with peculiar weight upon his soul that was of peculiar atrocity. He had stabbed a man on a Friday, and a few drops of the blood of the wound had fallen on his lips, by which he had broken the precepts of holy church, in having tasted animal food on a fast day. The murder did not seem to arouse in his conscience any feeling of remorse at all–not one atom–he would have done the same to-morrow; but an accidental violation of the canons of mother church excited all his fears. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Neglecting the inside

In Queen Elizabeths time, the way in which they cleaned out the halt of a castle, the floor of which might be covered with remnants of food and all manner of abominations, was to strew another layer of rushes over the top of the filth, and then they thought themselves quite neat and respectable. And that is what a great many of you do, cover the filth well up with a sweet smelling layer of conventional proprieties and think yourselves clean, and the pinks of perfection. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Heathen notions of sin

A missionary in India writes about what the people there call sin. He says: Travelling across the country one day, I took shelter from the sun in a native hut. The man kindly spread a mat for me, and the shade of the thatched roof was very acceptable. Soon a large number of poor men, who had been working in the muddy road, came there to eat their mid-day meal of rice. A young man of a better class came a little afterwards. While the rice was cooking at the foot of a tree outside, I began to tell them about Jesus. But soon the young man interrupted me, saying, Sahib, I have not so much need of salvation as these men have, and he pointed to their mud-covered legs, and thought of his own white clothes so free from mire. But I said again that all are sinners. There is none that doeth good, no not one. At last he said, Ha! I made a mistake. We are all sinners. Another day a man said to me, Sahib, you are a great sinner; as he said so he looked at my dusty boots and trousers, and then at my forehead streaming with perspiration. He had noticed how I had spoken to the people as though they were my brothers, and he concluded that if I were not a great sinner I should never be so poor, or have to work so hard, or mix so freely with the natives. Hindus, you see, think that God gives riches to the good and poverty to the bad. Once a man among the crowd said to me when I was preaching, Yes, thats true; we may do anything to get salvation, even sin. This was a strange mixture of ideas, was it not? But it shows that they do not think of salvation as freedom from sin. We have to teach them this. They do not even know what sin is. How can they, if they know not the law of God? If you ask a large crowd of Hindus the question, What is sin? they will answer in a moment, Eating beef. They say there are two unpardonable sins–killing a Brahmin and killing a cow. Sometimes we are asked, most seriously, Did Jesus Christ eat meat? They think that if He did, He too was a sinner. From this it will appear how difficult it is to get natives to understand what sin is not. (The Gospel in all Lands.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 37. To dine] . The word dignifies the first eating of the day. The Jews made but two meals in the day; their may be called their breakfast or their dinner, because it was both, and was but a slight meal. Their chief meal was their or supper, after the heat of the day was over; and the same was the principal meal among the Greeks and Romans. Josephus, in his Life, says, sect. 54, that the legal hour of the , on the Sabbath, was the sixth hour, or at twelve o’clock at noon, as we call it. What the hour was on the other days of the week, he does not say; but probably it was much the same. Bishop PEARCE.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

This is the second time we meet with our Saviour at a Pharisees house. He saith of himself, that he came eating and drinking, that is, allowing himself a free, though innocent, converse with all sorts of people, that he might gain some. The Pharisees were, as to the generality of them, the most bitter, stubborn, and implacable enemies Christ had, yet he refused not to go and sit at meat with a Pharisee.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And as he spake,…. Either the above words, or others at another time:

a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: as one of the same sect had before, in Lu 7:36 and who either was better affected to Christ than the generality of them were; or had a design upon him to get him into company with others, in private, and ensnare him if they could, and overcome him, who was an overmatch for them before the people; among whom they feared, should they go on thus publicly to attack him, their credit and reputation would sink, and be lost.

And he went in and sat down to meat: whatever were the intentions of the Pharisee, Christ, who was always affable and free with all sorts of men, readily accepted of the invitation, and at once went along with him to his house; and dinner being ready, and on the table, he immediately sat down without any ceremony.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Woes Denounced on That Generation; The Pharisees and Lawyers Reproved.

37 And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. 38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. 39 And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. 40 Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? 41 But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. 42 But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 43 Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. 44 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. 45 Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also. 46 And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. 49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: 50 That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; 51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. 53 And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: 54 Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

Christ here says many of those things to a Pharisee and his guests, in a private conversation at table, which he afterwards said in a public discourse in the temple (Matt. xxiii.); for what he said in public and private was of a piece. He would not say that in a corner which he durst not repeat and stand to in the great congregation; nor would he give those reproofs to any sort of sinners in general which he durst not apply to them in particular as he met with them; for he was, and is, the faithful Witness. Here is,

I. Christ’s going to dine with a Pharisee that very civilly invited him to his house (v. 37); As he spoke, even while he was speaking, a certain Pharisee interrupted him with a request to him to come and dine with him, to come forthwith, for it was dinner-time. We are willing to hope that the Pharisee was so well pleased with his discourse that he was willing to show him respect, and desirous to have more of his company, and therefore gave him this invitation and bade him truly welcome; and yet we have some cause to suspect that it was with an ill design, to break off his discourse to the people, and to have an opportunity of ensnaring him and getting something out of him which might serve for matter of accusation or reproach, Luk 11:53; Luk 11:54. We know not the mind of this Pharisee; but, whatever it was, Christ knew it: if he meant ill, he shall know Christ does not fear him; if well, he shall know Christ is willing to do him good: so he went in, and sat down to meat. Note, Christ’s disciples must learn of him to be conversable, and not morose. Though we have need to be cautious what company we keep, yet we need not be rigid, nor must we therefore go out of the world.

II. The offence which the Pharisee took at Christ, as those of that sort had sometimes done at the disciples of Christ, for not washing before dinner, v. 38. He wondered that a man of his sanctity, a prophet, a man of so much devotion, and such a strict conversation, should sit down to meat, and not first wash his hands, especially being newly come out of a mixed company, and there being in the Pharisee’s dining-room, no doubt, all accommodations set ready for it, so that he need not fear being troublesome; and the Pharisee himself and all his guests, no doubt, washing, so that he could not be singular; what, and yet not wash? What harm had it been if he had washed? Was it not strictly commanded by the canons of their church? It was so, and therefore Christ would not do it, because he would witness against their assuming a power to impose that as a matter of religion which God commanded them not. The ceremonial law consisted in divers washings, but this was none of them, and therefore Christ would not practise it, no not in complaisance to the Pharisee who invited him, nor though he knew that offence would be taken at his omitting it.

III. The sharp reproof which Christ, upon this occasion, gave to the Pharisees, without begging pardon even of the Pharisee whose guest he now was; for we must not flatter our best friends in any evil thing.

1. He reproves them for placing religion so much in those instances of it which are only external, and fall under the eye of man, while those were not only postponed, but quite expunged, which respect the soul, and fall under the eye of God, Luk 11:39; Luk 11:40. Now observe here, (1.) The absurdity they were guilty of: “You Pharisees make clean the outside only, you wash your hands with water, but do not wash your hearts from wickedness; these are full of covetousness and malice, covetousness of men’s goods, and malice against good men.” Those can never be reckoned cleanly servants that wash only the outside of the cup out of which their master drinks, or the platter out of which he eats, and take no care to make clean the inside, the filth of which immediately affects the meat or drink. The frame or temper of the mind in every religious service is as the inside of the cup and platter; the impurity of this infects the services, and therefore to keep ourselves free from scandalous enormities, and yet to live under the dominion of spiritual wickedness, is as great an affront to God as it would be for a servant to give the cup into his master’s hand, clean wiped from all the dust on the outside, but within full of cobwebs and spiders. Ravening and wickedness, that is, reigning worldliness and reigning spitefulness, which men think they can find some cloak and cover for, are the dangerous damning sins of many who have made the outside of the cup clean from the more gross, and scandalous, and inexcusable sins of whoredom and drunkenness. (2.) A particular instance of the absurdity of it: “Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? v. 40. Did not that God who in the law of Moses appointed divers ceremonial washings, with which you justify yourselves in these practices and impositions, appoint also that you should cleanse and purify your hearts? He who made laws for that which is without, did not he even in those laws further intend something within, and by other laws show how little he regarded the purifying of the flesh, and the putting away of the filth of that, if the heart be not made clean?” Or, it may have regard to God not only as a Lawgiver, but (which the words seem rather to import) as a Creator. Did not God, who made us these bodies (and they are fearfully and wonderfully made), make us these souls also, which are more fearfully and wonderfully made? Now, if he made both, he justly expects we should take care of both; and therefore not only wash the body, which he is the former of, and make the hands clean in honour of his work, but wash the spirit, which he is the Father of, and get the leprosy in the heart cleansed.

To this he subjoins a rule for making our creature-comforts clean to us (v. 41): “Instead of washing your hands before you go to meat, give alms of such things as you have” (ta enonta—of such things as are set before you, and present with you); “let the poor have their share out of them, and then all things are clean to you, and you may use them comfortably.” Here is a plain allusion to the law of Moses, by which it was provided that certain portions of the increase of their land should be given to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow; and, when that was done, what was reserved for their own use was clean to them, and they could in faith pray for a blessing upon it, Deut. xxvi. 12-15. Then we can with comfort enjoy the gifts of God’s bounty ourselves when we send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared, Neh. viii. 10. Job ate not his morsel alone, but the fatherless ate thereof, and so it was clean to him (Job xxxi. 17); clean, that is, permitted and allowed to be used, and then only can it be used comfortably. Note, What we have is not our own, unless God have his dues out of it; and it is by liberality to the poor that we clear up to ourselves our liberty to make use of our creature-comforts.

2. He reproves them for laying stress upon trifles, and neglecting the weighty matters of the law, v. 42. (1.) Those laws which related only to the means of religion they were very exact in the observance of, as particularly those concerning the maintenance of the priests: Ye pay tithe of mint and rue, pay it in kind and to the full, and will not put off the priests with a modus decimandi or compound for it. By this they would gain reputation with the people as strict observers of the law, and would make an interest in the priests, in whose power it was many a time to do them a kindness; and no wonder if the priests and the Pharisees contrived how to strengthen one another’s hands. Now Christ does not condemn them for being so exact in paying tithes (these things ought ye to have done), but to think that this would atone for the neglect of their greater duties; for, (2.) Those laws which relate to the essentials of religion they made nothing of: You pass over judgment and the love of God, you make no conscience of giving men their dues and God your hearts.

3. He reproves them for their pride and vanity, and affectations of precedency and praise of men (v. 43): “Ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues” (or consistories where the elders met for government); “if you have not those seats, you are ambitious of them; if you have, you are proud of them; and you love greetings in the markets, to be complimented by the people and to have their cap and knee.” It is not sitting uppermost, or being greeted, that is reproved, but loving it.

4. He reproves them for their hypocrisy, and their colouring over the wickedness of their hearts and lives with specious pretences (v. 44): “You are as graves overgrown with grass, which therefore appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them, and so they contract the ceremonial pollution which by the law arose from the touch of a grave.” These Pharisees were within full of abominations, as a grave of putrefaction; full of covetousness, envy, and malice; and yet they concealed it so artfully with a profession of devotion, that it did not appear, so that they who conversed with them, and followed their doctrine, were defiled with sin, infected with their corruptions and ill morals, and yet, they making a show of piety, suspected no danger by them. The contagion insinuated itself, and was insensibly caught, and those that caught it thought themselves never the worse.

IV. The testimony which he bore also against the lawyers or scribes, who made it their business to expound the law according to the tradition of the elders, as the Pharisees did to observe the law according to that tradition.

1. There was one of that profession who resented what he said against the Pharisees (v. 45): “Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also, for we are scribes; and we are therefore hypocrites?” Note, It is a common thing for unhumbled sinners to call and count reproofs reproaches. It is the wisdom of those who desire to have their sin mortified to make a good use of reproaches that come from ill will, and to turn them into reproofs. If we can in this way hear of our faults, and amend them, it is well: but it is the folly of those who are wedded to their sins, and resolved not to part with them, to make an ill use of the faithful and friendly admonitions given them, which come from love, and to have their passions provoked by them as if they were intended for reproaches, and therefore fly in the face of their reprovers, and justify themselves in rejecting the reproof. Thus the prophet complained (Jer. vi. 10): The word of the Lord is to them a reproach; they have no delight in it. This lawyer espoused the Pharisee’s cause, and so made himself partaker of his sins.

2. Our Lord Jesus thereupon took them to task (v. 46): Woe unto you also, ye lawyers; and again (v. 52): Woe unto you lawyers. They blessed themselves in the reputation they had among the people, who thought them happy men, because they studied the law, and were always conversant with that, and had the honour of instructing the people in the knowledge of that; but Christ denounced woes against them, for he sees not as man sees. This was just upon him for taking the Pharisee’s part, and quarrelling with Christ because he reproved them. Note, Those who quarrel with the reproofs of others, and suspect them to be reproaches to them, do but get woes of their own by so doing.

(1.) The lawyers are reproved for making the services of religion more burdensome to others, but more easy to themselves, than God had made them (v. 46): “You lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, by your traditions, which bind them out from many liberties God has allowed them, and bind them up to many slaveries which God never enjoined them, to show your authority, and to keep people in awe; but you yourselves touch them not with one of your fingers;” that is, [1.] “You will not burden yourselves with them, nor be yourselves bound by those restraints with which you hamper others.” They would seem, by the hedges they pretended to make about the law, to be very strict for the observance of the law; but, if you could see their practices, you would find that they not only make nothing of those hedges themselves, but make nothing of the law itself neither: thus the confessors of the Romish church are said to do with their penitents. [2.] “You will not lighten them to those you have power over; you will not touch them, that is, either to repeal them or to dispense with them when you find them to be burdensome and grievous to the people.” They would come in with both hands to dispense with a command of God, but not with a finger to mitigate the rigour of any of the traditions of the elders.

(2.) They are reproved for pretending a veneration for the memory of the prophets whom their fathers killed, when yet they hated and persecuted those in their own day who were sent to them on the same errand, to call them to repentance, and direct them to Christ, v. 47-49. [1.] These hypocrites, among other pretences of piety, built the sepulchres of the prophets; that is, they erected monuments over their graves, in honour of them, probably with large inscriptions containing high encomiums of them. They were not so superstitious as to enshrine their relics, or to think their devotions the more acceptable to God for being offered at the tombs of the martyrs; they did not burn incense or pray to them, or plead their merits with God; they did not add that iniquity to their hypocrisy; but, as if they owned themselves the children of the prophets, their heirs and executors, they repaired and beautified the monuments sacred to their pious memory. [2.] Notwithstanding this, they had an inveterate enmity to those in their own day that came to them in the spirit and power of those prophets; and, though they had not yet had an opportunity of carrying it far, yet they would soon do it, for the Wisdom of God said, that is, Christ himself would so order it, and did now foretel it, that they would slay and persecute the prophets and apostles that should be sent them. The Wisdom of God would thus make trial of them, and discover their odious hypocrisy, by sending them prophets, to reprove them for their sins and warn them of the judgments of God. Those prophets should prove themselves apostles, or messengers sent from heaven, by signs, and wonders, and gifts of the Holy Ghost. Or, “I will send them prophets under the style and title of apostles, who yet shall produce as good an authority as any of the old prophets did; and these they shall not only contradict and oppose, but slay and persecute, and put to death.” Christ foresaw this, and yet did not otherwise than as became the Wisdom of God in sending them, for he knew how to bring glory to himself in the issue, by the recompences reserved both for the persecutors and the persecuted in the future state. [3.] That therefore God will justly put another construction upon their building the tombs of the prophets than what they would be thought to intend, and it shall be interpreted their allowing the deeds of their fathers (v. 45); for, since by their present actions it appeared that they had no true value for their prophets, the building of their sepulchres shall have this sense put upon it, that they resolved to keep them in their graves whom their fathers had hurried thither. Josiah, who had a real value for prophets, thought it enough not to disturb the grave of the man of God at Bethel: Let no man move his bones,2Ki 23:17; 2Ki 23:18. If these lawyers will carry the matter further, and will build their sepulchres, it is such a piece of over-doing as gives cause to suspect an ill design in it, and that it is meant as a cover for some design against prophecy itself, like the kiss of a traitor, as he that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him, Prov. xxvii. 14.

[4.] That they must expect no other than to be reckoned with, as the fillers up of the measure of persecution, Luk 11:50; Luk 11:51. They keep up the trade as it were in succession, and therefore are responsible for the debts of the company, even those it has been contracting all along from the blood of Abel, when the world began, to that of Zacharias, and so forward to the end of the Jewish state; it shall all be required of this generation, this last generation of the Jews, whose sin in persecuting Christ’s apostles would exceed any of the sins of that kind that their fathers were guilty of, and so would bring wrath upon them to the uttermost,1Th 2:15; 1Th 2:16. Their destruction by the Romans was so terrible that it might well be reckoned the completing of God’s vengeance upon that persecuting nation.

(3.) They are reproved for opposing the gospel of Christ, and doing all they could to obstruct the progress and success of it, v. 52. [1.] They had not, according to the duty of their place, faithfully expounded to the people those scriptures of the Old Testament which pointed at the Messiah, which if they had been led into the right understanding of by the lawyers, they would readily have embraced him and his doctrine: but, instead of that, they had perverted those texts, and had cast a mist before the eyes of the people, by their corrupt glosses upon them, and this is called taking away the key of knowledge; instead of using that key for the people, and helping them to use it aright, they hid it from them; this is called, in Matthew, shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men, Matt. xxiii. 13. Note, those who take away the key of knowledge shut up the kingdom of heaven. [2.] They themselves did not embrace the gospel of Christ, though by their acquaintance with the Old Testament they could not but know that the time was fulfilled, and the kingdom of God was at hand; they saw the prophecies accomplished in that kingdom which our Lord Jesus was about to set up, and yet would not themselves enter into it. Nay, [3.] Them that without any guidance or assistance of theirs were entering in they did all they could to hinder and discourage, by threatening to cast them out of the synagogue, and otherwise terrifying them. It is bad for people to be averse to revelation, but much worse to be adverse to it.

Lastly, In the close of the chapter we are told how spitefully and maliciously the scribes and Pharisees contrived to draw him into a snare, Luk 11:53; Luk 11:54. They could not bear those cutting reproofs which they must own to be just; but what he had said against them in particular would not bear an action, nor could they ground upon it any criminal accusation, and therefore, as if, because his reproofs were warm, they hoped to stir him up to some intemperate heat and passion, so as to put him off his guard, they began to urge him vehemently, to be very fierce upon him, and to provoke him to speak of many things, to propose dangerous questions to him, laying wait for something which might serve the design they had of making him either odious to the people, or obnoxious to the government, or both. Thus did they seek occasion against him, like David’s enemies that did every day wrest his words, Ps. lvi. 5. Evil men dig up mischief. Note, Faithful reprovers of sin must expect to have many enemies, and have need to set a watch before the door of their lips, because of their observers that watch for their halting. The prophet complains of those in his time who make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, Isa. xxix. 21. That we may bear trials of this kind with patience, and get through them with prudence, let us consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Now as he spake ( ). Luke’s common idiom, with the articular infinitive (aorist active infinitive) but it does not mean “after he had spoken” as Plummer argues, but simply “in the speaking,” no time in the aorist infinitive. See 3:21 for similar use of aorist infinitive with .

Asketh (). Present active indicative, dramatic present. Request, not question.

To dine ( ). Note rather than the common . Aorist active subjunctive rather than present, for a single meal. The verb is from (breakfast). See distinction between and (dinner or supper) in Lu 14:12. It is the morning meal (breakfast or lunch) after the return from morning prayers in the synagogue (Mt 22:4), not the very early meal called . The verb is, however, used for the early meal on the seashore in John 21:12; John 21:15.

With him (‘ ). By his side.

Sat down to meat (). Second aorist active indicative of , old verb, to recline, to fall back on the sofa or lounge. No word here for “to meat.”

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Besought [] . Too strong. Better, as Rev., asketh. The present tense.

Dine [] . See on dinner, Mt 22:4. The morning meal, immediately after the return from morning prayers in the synagogue.

Washed [] . See on Mr 7:4.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And as he spake,” (en de to lalesai) “Then as he spoke,”

2) “A certain Pharisee besought him,” (erota auton Pharisaios) “A Pharisee invited or requested him,” perhaps for reasons of curiosity and an underlying ulterior motive of finding fault with Him.

3) “To dine with him:” (hopos aristese par’ auto) “That he would dine with or alongside him,” as a breakfast or brunch guest of honor, one to be treated as a friend, when invited to break bread with another.

4) “And he went in, and sat down to meat.” (eiselthon de anepesan) “Then he (Jesus) went in and reclined to eat,” the breakfast or brunch meal with the Pharisee, accepting his friendship gesture, Pro 18:24.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

This narrative agrees in some respects, but not entirely, with the doctrine laid down by Matthew, (Mat 10:1,) that Christ, in order to correct the superstition of the people, and particularly of the scribes, intentionally disregarded outward ceremonies of human invention, which the Jews were too solicitous to observe. God had prescribed in his Law certain kinds of washings, that by means of them he might train his people usefully to the consideration of true purity. The Jews, not satisfied with this moderate portion had added many other washings, and more especially, that no person should partake of food till he had been washed with the water of purification, as Mark relates more minutely, (Mar 12:3,) and as is also evident from John, (Joh 2:6.) This fault was accompanied by wicked confidence; for they cared little about the spiritual worship of God, and thought that they had perfectly discharged their duty, when the figure was substituted in the place of God. Christ is fully aware that his neglect of this ceremony will give offense, but he declines to observe it, in order to show that God sets very little value on outward cleanness, but demands the spiritual righteousness of the heart.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Luk. 11:37. Besought.Simply, asked (R.V.). To dine.Rather, that He would breakfast with him. The word used means a noon-day meal = our late breakfast or luncheon.

Luk. 11:38. Washed.The washing was a ceremonial act, and cleanliness was not the object of it. The ablutions, which had become most elaborate and frivolous, were not based even upon Levitical law, but upon Pharisaic tradition and the so-called Oral law.

Luk. 11:39. Now.I.e., as things are. Make clean, etc.In Mat. 23:25 a similar figure is used. There is, however, this difference: there the inside of the cup and platter are said to be full of extortion and wickednessi.e., got by wrongful means and used profligately; here it is to the inward partthe spiritual condition of the men themselvesthat reference is made.

Luk. 11:40. Did not He who made the body (that which is without) make the mind and soul also (that which is within)? What folly to attend to the cleanness of the one and to ignore the foulness of the other!

Luk. 11:41. Give alms of such things as ye have.Rather, give for alms those things which are within (R.V.). Christ returns to speak of the literal contents of cup and platter: Be not anxious about the outward part, but rather attend to its contents, and do but give alms therefrom, and the food and everything else shall be pure to you (Bloomfield). A deed of unselfishness and goodwill would make a change in the whole inward condition.

Luk. 11:42. Tithe mint, etc.As commanded in Deu. 14:22. No proportion was observed between greater and less commandmentsthose based on eternal principles and those of a local or temporary character. Judgment and the love of God.Hebraism for justice and equity (cf. Mic. 6:8).

Luk. 11:43. The sin of pride is rebuked; the desire to be prominent and to secure reverent salutations from their brethren. The places in the synagogue nearest to the reading-desk, where the elders sat, were specially coveted.

Luk. 11:44. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!Omit these words; omitted in R.V. Taken probably from the parallel passage in Mat. 23:27. Graves.Unsuspected pits of corruption. The figure in St. Matthews gospel is somewhat differentwhited sepulchres, outwardly beautiful.

Luk. 11:45. One of the lawyers.This man felt that his official ecclesiastical position should shield him against such reproaches. As a class the lawyers, or scribes, were inclined to Pharisaism.

Luk. 11:46. Burdens grievous.The details of ceremonial obedience were multiplied and became an intolerable yoke (cf. Act. 15:10); and some of those who laid stress upon them were guilty of the inconsistency of neglecting them themselves.

Luk. 11:47. Build sepulchres.I.e., ostentatiously separate themselves from the sins of their ancestors in rejecting the prophets, and yet are guilty of the same wickedness in rejecting John the Baptist and Christ.

Luk. 11:48. Ye allow.I.e., consent to (R.V.). In a sense, respect for the dead prophets was in itself an offence against the living. Instead of hearkening to the voice of living representatives of the Divine will, they set up against them the reputation and authority and teaching of those who had long passed away.

Luk. 11:49. The wisdom of God.This is a very peculiar phrase, and has excited considerable controversy. There is no passage in the Old Testament which corresponds verbally with this apparent quotation. There can be no doubt, however, that Christ alludes to 2Ch. 24:20-22, and more especially to 2Ch. 36:14-21 of the same book. It may be that since there is not formal quotation this peculiar phrase is used: the method of Divine procedure is described rather than the historical examples of it cited. The wisdom of God is probably equivalent to the wise God. God, in His wisdom, sees fit to follow such and such a course.

Luk. 11:51. Abel.The first martyr in the strife between holiness and unrighteousness whose history is found in the first historical book of the Old Testament. Zacharias.2Ch. 24:20-21 : the last historical book of the Old Testament.

Luk. 11:52. The key of knowledge.Cf. Mat. 13:52; Mat. 16:19. Knowledge, i.e., of God, of which the Scriptures were the key. The scribes, by arrogating to themselves exclusive authority to interpret the Scriptures, while they did not interpret them truly, either for their own use, or for the good of those whom they instructed, kept the key of knowledge shut up and useless (Speakers Commentary).

Luk. 11:53. And as He said these things unto them.Rather, and when He was come out from thence (R.V.). Began to urge Him.Or, to press upon Him (R.V.). They surrounded Him in a most threatening and irritating manner, in a scene of violence perhaps unique in the life of Jesus (Farrar).

Luk. 11:54. That they might accuse Him.Omitted in R.V.; but evidently the words are a fair description of the motives of His adversaries, though not part of the text of the Gospel.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Luk. 11:37-54

Besetting Sins of Religious Leaders and Teachers.The Pharisees aimed at setting before the people an example of holiness which it was their duty to imitate; the scribes assumed to themselves the task of instructing them in the law of God. The one showed them what they should do, the other taught them what they should believe. And then, as now, the position of those who were set apart, or who set themselves up as leaders and teachers, was attended with no little spiritual danger. They were apt to become arrogant and self-complacent, and to affect an outward austerity very much at variance with their inward condition of heart and character. All through His earthly ministry the kind of righteousness which Christ taught and exemplified was antagonistic to that of the Pharisees and scribes, and therefore we need not be surprised that on some occasions, as in the present, He came into direct collision with them.

I. The first fault with which He charged the Pharisees was hypocrisy (Luk. 11:39-42).They acted the part of righteous men, without being righteous at heart, and hence they laid stress upon all such practices as appealed to the outward eye, and were indifferent to the spiritual requirements of the law of God. Just as an actor assumes the dress of the character he wishes to portray, and adopts a tone of voice suitable to the part, and appropriate gestures, attitudes, and speeches, so did the Pharisees assume the outward guise of those who were intent upon honouring and serving God. They were zealous in practising all kinds of ceremonial purification, and in payment of tithes, and went, indeed, beyond the requirements of the law of Moses. Yet their fault did not consist in their extreme scrupulousness, but rather in neglect of moral and spiritual obligations. Beneath the pious exterior lay greed, and injustice, and hardness of heart, and self-indulgence. The sin they were guilty of is only too easily possible in Christian societythat of combining a sanctimonious profession of religion with a very lax moral practice.

II. The second fault with which Christ charged the Pharisees was that of vainglorious ambition (Luk. 11:43).They loved the praises of men, and sought to gain and wield power for the gratification of their own pride and vanity. Their motive was an evil one, and vitiated the influence for good which their profession of zeal for the honour of God might have exercised. For when the mask was taken away from their characters it became evident that they were seeking to promote their own self-advancement, and not the interests of true religion. The teaching of Christ, therefore, distinctly warns us that holiness does not consist merely in the performance of certain actions, but in the pure and righteous character of the motives that govern the life. His words on this occasion, too, describe the hurtful influence exercised by all spurious forms of religious life (Luk. 11:44). Not only do they fail to promote righteousness, but they are like a poisonous contagion. The corruption is all the more deceptive because it is concealed, and it infects those who come into contact with it.

III. A characteristic fault of the scribes was their laying stress upon the letter of Gods Word rather than upon the spirit of it (Luk. 11:45-46).This is akin to the reproach addressed to the Pharisees, for literalism is closely allied to formalism. They rendered the Scriptures an oppressive burden by the minute rules which they deduced from them, and which they imposed upon all those whom they instructed. But for their own part they substituted knowledge for practice. Probably in all ages of the Churchs history those may be found who perpetuate this faultwho set up their own interpretations of Scripture and deductions from it as of co-ordinate authority with the Word of God. And those who are most peremptory in insisting upon acquiescence in their rigid interpretation of Scripture generally enjoy a freedom which they deny to others. Their work seems to be that of imposing burdens, and not of sharing burdens.

IV. Another characteristic fault of the scribes is their rancorous orthodoxy (Luk. 11:47-51).They are in antagonism to living piety, and persecute it. They set up over against those who are the present mouthpieces of Gods Spirit the authority of earlier teachers, whose opponents they would have been if they had lived in their times. And by their resistance to Gods messengers they approve themselves as children of those who in earlier ages killed the prophets. God leaves no generation of men without His witnesses, and those who resist them share the guilt of those who were persecutors in times long past, even though they may sincerely believe that they abhor their actions. Such orthodoxy, which manifests itself in the statement and defence of a creed which is more a matter of the intellect than an inspiring influence upon the life, is a positive hindrance to religion (Luk. 11:52). It is like taking away the key of a door and hindering both ourselves and others from entering in.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk. 11:37-54

Luk. 11:37-38. A Violation of Hospitality.There can be little doubt that this Pharisee violated the laws of hospitality by inviting Jesus to his house for the purpose of watching Him, and of founding some accusation against Him. Others of the guests had the same hostility towards Him in their minds (Luk. 11:45; Luk. 11:53). This fact explains the severity of tone manifested by Jesus throughout the scene. Except for grave reasons, He would not have spoken as He did in the house of His entertainer. There are times when higher obligations than the rules of good society must be respected.

Luk. 11:39-40. The Pharisees Rebuked.The Pharisees are rebuked

(1) for being addicted to meaningless ritesfor lustrations which had been instituted for the purpose of suggesting moral purity lost their significance when practised for their own sake;

(2) for attending merely to external appearances;
(3) for the folly of imagining that God was such an one as themselves, and would be satisfied with a mere pretence and show of righteousness; and
(4) for the covetousness and greed by which they had enriched themselves, and which made them indifferent to the claims of the poor and unfortunate.

Luk. 11:41. Give alms.There is no question here of the intrinsic merit of good works: Jesus is simply contrasting the positive value of a kindly deed with the worthlessness of mere outward observances.

All things are clean unto you.Let them do one single loving, unselfish actnot for the sake of the action itself, nor for any merit inherent in it, but out of pure good-will towards othersand their whole inward condition would be different. Let those things, which had been the materials and instruments of sin and selfishness, become the instruments of love and kindness, and all things, both that which is without and that which is within, would be at once purified for them. In other words, as the cup and the platter, the outside of which they cleansed so scrupulously and sedulously, were defiled by the bad means by which their contents were procured, or the evil uses to which they were put, so they would be purified, not by any formal outward acts, but by that spirit of love which would dictate a right and charitable destination of their contents.Speakers Commentary.

Luk. 11:42. Two Marks of Hypocrisy.

1. To be more exact in and zealous for the observance of ritual and the traditions of men, than in and for the observance of the moral law of God.
2. In matters of morality to be more exact and strict in and for little things, than for things more grave and weighty. There is no commandment of God that we are at liberty to despise: yet we should have more regard to greater than to lesser duties.

Judgment and the Love of God.The reference is to Mic. 6:6-8, where the prophet makes all acceptable religion to consist in doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

Not to Leave the Other Undone.The moderation and wisdom of Jesus shine out in these words; He does not at all desire prematurely to break the legal mould in which Jewish righteousness was cast, provided that it was not maintained at the expense of the real contents of the law.Godet.

The First and The Last.By all means be most minutely conscientious. But then see to it that ye do not

(1) put the last first, and
(2) put off and put out the first altogether, contenting yourselves with the last and least. See to it, on the contrary, that
(1) ye put the first first, and that then
(2) ye do not put off and put out the last, but bring it in and yet keep it last.Morison.

Luk. 11:44. Whitewashed Tombs.Jews had a custom of whitewashing sepulchral stones once a year. At the time when our Lord used this metaphor to characterise the scribes and Pharisees, the tombs about Jerusalem had been recently whitewashed, and so were beautified for a season. As He spoke in the open air, the white stones must have been conspicuous on every side. The object of this whitewashing was not to embellish, but to point out the gravestone to the passer-by, that he might not tread on it or touch it. Later casuists pronounced the man unclean who casually stepped on a grave or touched a tombstone. This explains the saying of our Lord in the text. It amounts to a charge against the Pharisees of concealing their true character from the people, and spreading contamination while no one suspected them of evil.Fraser.

Luk. 11:45. Reproachest us also.In what a grievous state is that conscience which, hearing the Word of God, thinks it a reproach against itself; and, in the account of the punishment of the wicked, perceives its own condemnation!Bede.

Luk. 11:46-52. Besetting Sins of Theologians.The besetting sins of theologians:

1. Harshness and insincerity (Luk. 11:46).

2. A rancorous and persecuting spirit (Luk. 11:47-51).

3. Arrogance and exclusiveness (Luk. 11:52).

Luk. 11:46. Knowledge Substituted for Practice.Very rigid principles combined with very lax conduct. Undue attention to the intellectual side of religion is generally found accompanied by this moral deficiency.

Touch with one of your fingers.This is opposed to taking up the burden upon the shoulders.

Luk. 11:47-48. Ye build the sepulchres.Ye build their tombs and adorn their monuments, but ye do not imitate their example; ye disobey their precepts, and slight their warnings, and rebel against their God. who has sent to you His Son, to whom all the prophets bear witness. And thus ye show yourselves the children of those who killed the prophets, and are even worse than your fathers, because ye add hypocrisy to impiety.

Resisting the Prophets.Ask in Moses time, Who are the good people? They will be Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but not Moseshe should be stoned. Ask in Samuels time, Who are the good people? They will be Moses and Joshua; but not Samuel. Ask in the times of Christ, and they will be all the former prophets, with Samuel; but not Christ and His apostles.Stier.

Luk. 11:51. Abel Zacharias.The murder of Abel was the first in the strife between unrighteousness and holiness, and as these Jews represent, in their conduct, both in former times and now, the murderer of the first, they must bear the vengeance of the whole in Gods day of wrath. Our Lord mentions the murder of Zacharias, not as being the last, even before His own day, but because it was connected specially with the cry of the dying man: The Lord look upon it, and require it (2Ch. 24:22).Alford.

This generation.A great and rapid river, which should, for thirty or forty years together, have its current violently stoppedwhat a mass of water would it collect in so long a space; and if it should then be let loose, with what fury would it overrun and bear down all before it?J. Taylor.

Accumulated Guilt.It belongs to the fearful earnestness of the Divine retributive righteousness that when a generation concurs in heart with the wickedness of an earlier generation, it receives, in the final retribution of the accumulated guilt, as well the punishment for its own as also for the former sins which it had inwardly made its own.Van Oosterzee.

Luk. 11:52. Key of knowledge.Jesus represents knowledge of God and of salvation under the figure of a sanctuary: it was the duty of the scribes to lead the people into it, but they had locked the door and kept possession of the key. This key is the Word of God, the interpretation of which the scribes planned exclusively for themselves.Godet.

Keeping the Key.The scribes, by arrogating to themselves exclusive authority to interpret the Scriptures, while they did not interpret them truly, either for their own use, or for the good of those whom they instructed, kept the key of knowledge shut up and useless.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Butlers Comments

SECTION 4

Pharisaism (Luk. 11:37-54)

37 While he was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him; so he went in and sat at table. 38The Pharisee was astonished to see, that he did not first wash before dinner. 39And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of. the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness. 40You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, everything is clean for you.

42 But woe to you Pharisees! for you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43Woe to you Pharisees! for you love the best seat in the synagogues and salutations in the market places. 44Woe to you; for you are not seen, and men walk over them without knowing it.

45 One of the lawyers answered him, Teacher, in saying this you reproach us also. 46And he said, Woe to you lawyers also! for you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47Woe to you! for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48So you are witnesses and consent to the deeds of your fathers; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, 50that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, 51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it shall be required of this generation. 52Woe to you lawyers! for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.

53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard, and to provoke him to speak of many things, 54lying in wait for him, to catch at something he might say.

Luk. 11:37-44 Hypocrisy: Jesus was invited to dine with a Pharisee while He was confronting His enemies. The extraordinary wisdom Jesus displayed in completely defeating the accusations against Him intrigued this Pharisee, so he wanted to see and listen to the Sage of Galilee firsthand. This Pharisee was totally unprepared for what he heard from the lips of Jesus. The Greek word aristese means break your fast or breakfast (see Joh. 21:12; Joh. 21:15) and originally referred to the first meal of the day. But it came to mean in the days of Jesus a sort of brunch or the meal eaten after morning prayers in the synagogue, at mid-morning. Jesus entered the Pharisees house and went immediately to the couch and reclined (Gr. anepesen), without performing the traditional washing of the hands before the meal. The Hebrew language has three words most often used in the O.T. for ceremonial washing: kavas, rachatz, and taval. Taval means, to dip or immerse. The Greek word used in Luk. 11:38 is ebaptisthe which means, to dip or immerse. Modern Hebrew has focused on the word taval to categorize all ceremonial ablutions (see Judaica Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, 8286).

There were all kinds of purifications practiced in the Gospels: There were washings for lepers (Luk. 17:12; Lev. 13:45 ff.); washings after birth (Luk. 2:22) and before wedding feasts (Joh. 2:6). A Jew argued with John the Baptists disciples about purification (Joh. 3:25-30); Peter was always careful to observe laws of purification (Act. 10:14); Pharisees were meticulous about purification (Mat. 23:25; Luk. 7:39; Joh. 18:28); regulations about ablutions were a characteristic part of Judaism (Heb. 9:9-10).

God made scores of laws demanding ceremonial washing in the O.T. (cf. Lev. 5:2 ff; Lev. 7:19-21; Lev. 11:23-25; Lev. 15:11; Lev. 17:15 ff; Lev. 18:1 ff; Lev. 19:31; Lev. 21:4 ff; Lev. 22:1-9; Num. 5:3; Num. 6:9; Num. 9:6 ff; Num. 19:13-22; Deu. 21:22 ff; Deu. 14:3-21; Deu. 23:10-14). All these had to do with ritual uncleanness. In many instances there was nothing physically or hygienically unclean involved. Everything created by God is good when properly used. God gave the commands to teach man that perfect spiritual cleanness by works of the Law was impossible, because man was unable to even keep the ceremonial aspect of the Law perfectly.

But Jesus did not violate Mosaic Law when He failed to baptize His hands before eating. Nowhere in the Law of Moses are Jews commanded to wash their hands before eating. The washing of hands is mentioned only once in the Torah (Lev. 15:11) and that has nothing to do with meals. Washing of hands is rabbinical tradition pure and simple. According to the rabbis, washing of hands to be cleansed of impurity before meals was instituted by King Solomon; some think the tradition was instituted by the disciples of Hillel and Shammai, The washing of hands is either by immersion up to the wrist or by pouring about one-half a pint of water over both hands from a receptacle with a wide mouth, the lip of which must be undamaged. The water should be poured over the whole hand up to the wrist, but is acceptable as long as the fingers are washed up to the second joint. The hands must be clean and without anything adhering to them; rings must be removed so that the water can reach the entire surface area. The water should not be hot or discolored and it is customary to perform the act by pouring water over each hand three times. Superstition and racial prejudices were both in the background of this tradition. The Talmud refers at length to the tradition supposing that demons sat on unwashed hands just waiting to get into the persons body through the mouth. The Talmud also mentions that Rabbi Akibba, although personally opposed to the tradition, nevertheless used the limited water allowed him in prison for this ablution rather than for drinking and so died of thirst.

The word Pharisee comes from the Hebrew word pharashim which means separated ones. It was a Jewish sect which was originally known as the Chasidim, a Hebrew word meaning, pious ones. The Chasidim was formed from a group of old fashioned Jews who dedicated themselves to resist the paganization of their culture during the Seleucid (Greco-Syrian) domination of Palestine (350175 B.C.). They denounced everything of Gentile practice, insisted on the absolute supremacy of the Torah, and often resisted to the death any attempt to Greekize their land and people. The tendency of the Hasmoneans (Jewish royal and priestly family descending from the Maccabeans) to compromise with certain aspects of paganism brought about an intense sectarian division in Judaism that lasted down into the days of Jesus in the sects of the Pharisees and Sadducees (see chart on Religious-Political Frame of First Century Judaism, pg. 88).

The Pharisees were the most prominent and influential sect of Jesus day. Josephus says there were about 6000 Pharisees in the first century A.D. They were contemptuous of all who did not follow their traditions and violently opposed to anyone who would threaten their religious traditions whether Gentile or Jew. The fundamental feature of the sect was extreme legalism. They believed in Divine, providence, the free will of man, resurrection of the dead and judgment. They lived moderately (although many of them were rich), placed great store-in history and ethnic culture of the Jewish race. They eagerly anticipated the Golden Age of the Messiah (as they interpreted it). Rabbinical tradition was something about which the Pharisees were deadly serious. Rabbinical interpretations of the Torah were designed to protect the Law. To keep the unlearned and, common people from ignorantly disobeying the Law, the rabbis (with all their expertise) deemed it necessary to write out in minute detail every possible human action that might violate a commandment of the Torah. Soon after Malachi, the last prophet of God (400 B.C.), there arose in rabbinic Judaism the concept called, Bath Kol. These two Hebrew words mean, literally, Daughter of the Voice. The rabbinical meaning of the words is, The Divine Voice. According to this concept God whispered all the rabbinic traditions (interpretations) to Moses at the same time He gave Moses the Torah. Moses wrote the Torah down, but passed on the interpretations orally. These oral traditions were passed on from generation to generations through the rabbis until around 132200 A.D. when they were produced in written form in the Mishnah, the Haggadah, the Halakah, and the Talmud (300400 A.D.).

It is not difficult to understand now why the Pharisee was astonished (Gr. Ethaumasen, shocked) to see that Jesus did not first wash before He ate. The Pharisee considered Jesus action a violation of The Divine Voice. It is interesting that this Pharisee, living in Judea the hotbed of Pharisaic legalism, would invite Jesus to dine with him considering the attitudes of the Pharisees toward Jesus:

They considered Jesus claim to forgive sins blasphemy (Mat. 9:3 ff.; Mar. 6:2 ff.; Luk. 5:21)

They rankled at His social associations with publicans and sinners (Mat. 9:11; Mar. 2:16; Luk. 5:30; Luk. 15:1)

They accused His disciples of non-observance of required feasts (Luk. 5:33).

They tried to prove Jesus was in league with Satan (Mat. 9:34; Mat. 11:19; Mat. 12:24 ff.; Mar. 3:22; Luk. 11:14).

They attacked Him for violating Sabbath traditions (Mat. 12:2; Mat. 12:10; Mar. 2:23; Mar. 3:2; Luk. 6:5-7; Luk. 13:14 ff.; Joh. 5:10-18; Joh. 9:13).

They compromised their convictions to join with the Herodians to kill Jesus (Mar. 3:6).

They also joined with the hated Sadducees to trap Him (Mat. 15:1; Mat. 22:1 ff.), and kill Him (Mat. 27:62; Joh. 18:3).

They accused Him of planning to destroy the Temple (Joh. 2:19; Mat. 26:59-61; Mat. 27:39-40).

They accused Him of being a deceiver (Joh. 7:12; Mat. 27:62 ff.).

They ridiculed Him (Joh. 7:48) and tried to slander Him by calling Him a Samaritan (Joh. 8:48) and demon possessed.

They charged Him with sedition against the Roman empire (Luk. 23:1-2).

They mocked Him in His death on the cross (Mat. 27:41 ff.).

Evidently the Pharisee said something to Jesus about violation of rabbinic tradition for Jesus replied with a lengthy and scathing rebuke of Pharisaic hypocrisy. What He said here, Jesus repeated about a year later in greater detail in the midst of His last week on earth (Mat. 23:1 ff.).

The Lords first admonition to the Pharisees is that they clean up the inner man. They were very orthodox on the outside. They kept all the ceremonies and rituals. They attended all the feasts and fasts without fail. They appeared to be very pious. But inwardly they were full of extortion and wickedness. They even made religious traditions by which they could circumvent moral and financial responsibility to their aged parents (Mat. 15:3-6) and all the while appear to be very pious by declaring their money Corban (devoted to God). But God looks on the heart and not on the outward appearance. No man can fool GodHe looks at motives. Alms-giving is an abomination before God if it is done with a resentful or unwilling heart. The Sermon on the Mount (Mat. 6:1-18) plainly teaches that why we do any religious deed is more important than the deed itself! Doing ones piety before men, to be seen of them, indicates an unclean heart, no matter how right the deed may be, If the Pharisees would clean up their hearts and give those to the world, they would be giving the kind of alms God wants the world to have. More than coins given out of self-righteous, and resentful hypocrisy, the world needs love, purity, truth and kindness. While love can only be expressed by giving, and giving material things to the poor can come from a pure heart (Jas. 1:27; Jas. 2:14-17; 1Jn. 3:16-18), giving alms does not necessarily equal piety. It is only when the heart is right with God that everything then becomes clean (cf. Mat. 15:10-11; Mar. 7:14-23; 1Ti. 4:1-5).

Jesus next points out the Pharisaic tendency to major in minors. The Pharisees meticulously counted every dill seed, setting aside every tenth one, to insure legal correctness. The Talmud even suggests that the pious Jew ought to cut up every dill-plant stalk into ten parts and give one-tenth to the Temple. While they were unimpeachably precise in these outward regulations and spent most of their time trying to make others so, they were unconcerned about fairness, the rights of others and love of God. Jesus called these latter things the weightier matters of the law in Mat. 23:23. Jesus does not say they should quit tithing to the Lord as the Law of Moses required, but He insists that scrupulosity in setting aside every tenth dill seed is not the essence of Gods law. The real purpose behind every Law, even of the tithe, is grace, mercifulness and redemption for the soul of man. A man may be very accurate in religious ritual and doctrine but if he has no sensitivity to justice for his fellow man nor love for God he has a perverted sense of values and his orthodoxy is probably motivated by a hope in self-righteousness. Financial support for the work of Gods kingdom must have the right motives (cf. 2Co. 9:5-8).

Ego-tripping was another favorite endeavor of the Pharisees. They loved the best seat in the synagogues and salutations in the market places. The Greek word protokathedrian is a compound of proto (first or chief) and kathedra (throne or seat); kathedra is the word from which the English word cathedral comes. Kathedra is sometimes used in classical Greek to mean a teachers seat, or a judges seat. Jesus denounced them later for loving to be called rabbi (teacher or master) (cf. Mat. 23:7-8). This mania still persists in religious circles today where men not only love but insist on being called, Doctor, Pastor, Reverend, Father or some other title. Bigshotism corrupts! The inordinate self-seeking egotism that feeds on competitiveness is Pharisaic! The urge to constantly class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves and measure ourselves by one another (2Co. 10:12) leads to a complacent and destructive superiority. Beware of the intoxication of eruditionnever think you have learned all there is to know. Beware of flattering compliments (2Pe. 2:18; Jud. 1:16)never seriously believe you are as great as others say you are! Bigshots are like graves; full of corruption themselves and dangerous to others who associate with them because people are fooled by their outward appearances. Hanging around self-proclaimed bigshots will corrupt you like the uncleanness the Jews incurred by walking over a grave.

Luk. 11:45-54 Hate: There is an old adage which says, if you throw a stone at a pack of dogs the one that is hit will yelp. One of the lawyers (Gr. nomikois; also called grammateis or scribes) yelped! What Jesus had been saying about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees reproached the scribes or lawyers also. Lawyers and scribes were the data processors of the Jewish religion. They were closely associated with the Pharisees. Their origins go even farther back in the history of Judaism than that of the Phariseesback to pre-exilic days. They were the public recorders, governmental secretaries, legal experts, charged with passing on the rabbinical teachings in writing, They also taught and interpreted the traditions. All public education of the Jewish populace was in their control. They were charged with making civil judgments; they were members of the Sanhedrin, loved the title of rabbi, wore long robes, and sought public adoration. They were the most watchful and determined opponents of Jesus (cf. Mar. 2:16; Luk. 5:30; Luk. 15:2).

Jesus first denouncement of the lawyers was that they were totally insensitive to other mens burdens. In fact, Jesus accused them of loading men with burdens hard to bear and then refusing to help at all in relieving the burdens. These burdens they placed on men were their unbiblical (and in some cases, antibiblical) traditions. Here are some of them:

A Jew was forbidden by scribal tradition from eating eggs on the Sabbath because the hen had to work to lay the egg and that breaks the Sabbath tradition.

It was forbidden to slaughter animals on the Sabbath unless it was a louse. (Conservative rabbis forbade even that while liberal ones allowed people to pull the legs off a louse on the Sabbath).

If a wheat-offering portion had been stored in a granary, no other wheat could be stored there unless the Jew swept the granary with a certain number of broom strokes.

It was questionable whether a Nazarite, with a vow to abstain from mashed food was permitted to eat an onion crushed accidentally.

Volume after volume of scribal traditions were forced upon the common people, until life was almost unbearably regimented and stifled. But Pharisees and scribes made sure they freed themselves of such burdens by adding traditions that only they were privy to:

The tradition of Corban (already mentioned, Luk. 11:37-44).

The tradition of Fictitious Domicile where a scribe, if he had an important rabbinical journey to make could pretend he had a domicile every 7/8ths of a mile and travel that far, pretend to take up lodging for a few moments and then travel on another 7/8ths of a mile.

The tradition called Prosbol which was a document designed (much like Corban) to circumvent cancellation of debts.

The tradition about swearing by the altar vs. swearing by the gift on the altar (cf. Mat. 23:16-22).

This is the way the lawyers of Jesus day kept themselves aloof from the burdensome traditions they demanded of everyone else. Most societies, including our own, have an elite group of law-makers who burden the masses with an unbearable multitude of statutes while they find ways to keep themselves above the laws. Lawyers, judges, legislators and religious teachers should practice what they preach!

Next Jesus took occasion to expose the murderous hatefulness in the hearts of some of these lawyers. Outwardly the lawyers and scribes built fancy and ornate tombs for the old prophets (cf. Mat. 23:29-36), but inwardly they hated and wanted to murder The Prophet, Jesus. Outwardly they gave the impression they revered Gods prophets, but in their open hatred of Jesus they showed a wicked heart that would have, like their forefathers, killed the prophets had they lived in that ancient generation. Outwardly they pretended to hold life sacred; inwardly they were the worst killers of all time for they killed the Son of God! The Wisdom of God (Luk. 11:49) is apparently a Messianic title Jesus applies to Himself since in the passage in Mat. 23:34, the later, similar denouncement of the Pharisees, Jesus says, Therefore I send you prophets . . . Wisdom is personified in the book of Proverbs (Luk. 8:1 ff.) which may be a Messianic prophecy in itself.

Because these lawyers wanted to (and did) succeed in murdering the innocent Son of God, they will be held responsible for all the murdering of Gods prophets and messengers in the Old Testament. The blood of Abel was the first to be shed because of the truth of God (Gen. 4:10); the blood of Zechariah (2Ch. 24:22) was the last. But the death of The Prophet, The Messiah, will be the ultimate murder, the crowning act of all such hatred against Gods sovereignty. Daniel, the prophet, predicted that near the end of the 490 years (70 weeks of years), which would begin with the restoration of the Jewish commonwealth, the Jewish people would fill the cup of their rebellion to the brim and cut off the Prince, (cf. Dan. 9:24-27; see comments in Daniel, by Butler, College Press, pgs. 344353 and 363366), (See also Mat. 23:32-36; 1Th. 2:15-16; Mat. 21:33-43; Joh. 15:22-27; Act. 2:22-23; Act. 3:13-15; Act. 7:51-53; Act. 4:25-28). The killing of Gods Son was the ultimate sin; it was what Daniel called, finish the transgression (Dan. 9:24). The murder of Gods Son resulted in Gods destruction of the Jewish commonwealth in 70 A.D. (cf. Luk. 19:41-44; Mat. 22:1-10; 1Th. 2:16; Dan. 9:26 b27).

Finally, Jesus accused the scribes and lawyers of taking away from men the key of knowledge. These lawyers pretended to be guardians and proclaimers of the knowledge of God, but in reality they were destroyers. Instead of teaching the people the will of God as God revealed it in the Old Testament, they cluttered and obscured and hid under a blanket of human traditions the real revelation of God. They opposed Christ and poisoned the minds of the people against Him in the very face of His miracles and goodness and purity. They threatened harm to anyone who made any effort to follow Jesus and learn of God from Him. Christ was the Word of God incarnate. He is the key to all wisdom (cf. Col. 2:3; Col. 2:17; Joh. 14:6), He attempted to cut through the veneer of scribal tradition and teach the people the true revelation of God. That is why the lawyers opposed Him so vehemently. Deinos is a Greek adverb meaning terribly, fearfully, hatefully; enechein means, to hold in, to entangle, to entrap. These lawyers and Pharisees were consumed with their hatred and desire to entangle Jesus. They were going to try to apostomatizein (provoke or, literally, draw out of Jesus mouth) many things from Jesus and trap Him in some error. The phrase that they might accuse him in the KJV is not found in the best manuscripts (such as Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Codex Regius Parisiensis, the Syriac Curetonian, the Boharic), but that is what is certainly inferred. They certainly were not lying in wait to learn some truth from Jesus they could put to practice in their lives. They kept badgering Him like vicious dogs barking at their prey hoping to catch Him off-guard so they could rush in for the kill.

Jesus met every hostile attack and subtle deception with truth and devastating logic. He did not do it to wound His attackers and destroy any hope of their salvationHe did it to arrest their self-destroying plunges into vicious falsehood and hatred. Some went wilfully on in their hatred, intensifying their efforts to kill Him; others undoubtedly were rescued. There were a few Pharisees and influential Jewish leaders who did become disciples (e.g. Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and others). The world is still filled with Pharisees and lawyers, pretending to love God but all the while studying His word only to try to destroy it.

STUDY STIMULATORS:

What do you think about formal prayers? Should people read prayers from manuscripts? Did Jesus advocate a certain form of prayer? Is it all right to repeat the Lords Prayer in unison?

Can we get God to change His mind by praying long enough for the same thing? If not, why did Jesus talk about the friend at midnight who was heard for his persistence?

Is the Holy Spirit given when all one does is pray? When was the Holy Spirit given to men?

Do you think Christians should try to be logical in their presentation of the Gospel? Didnt the apostle Paul go into Jewish synagogues and reason with Jews from the scriptures about the Christ?

When was the devil bound?

Is the whole world of mankind actually divided into only two segmentssaved and lost? Who are the saved? Who are the lost?

How did the Jews let seven demons worse than the first inhabit their swept-clean house? Is their plight a possibility for believers today?

Why did the woman think the mother of Jesus was so blessed? What do you think of Jesus answer?

When is it wrong to ask the Lord for signs? Is it ever right? Are religious people today wrong in clamoring for miraculous signs?

10.

From the study of Jesus exposure of the Pharisees and lawyers, do you see any parallels of hypocrisy in the modern church?

BLESSING OF BEING SEALED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

(Eph. 1:13-14)

By Paul T. ButlerOBC Chapel, 102373
INTRODUCTION

CONTEXTUALLY

These two verses combine to form one of the great spiritual blessings God has blessed us with in Christ.

Paul lays two huge sentences on the Ephesian church in chapter one.

The first sentence Luk. 1:3-14 is a catalog of all the ways in which God has blessed Christians in Christ.

The second sentence Luk. 1:15-23 is Pauls prayer that these Christians may know (understand and experience) those blessings.

Paul did not place all this breathtaking stress upon spiritual blessings without reason.

Spiritual blessings are not contingent upon favorable physical circumstances and are available to all believers alike.

Spiritual blessings thus have to do with the abiding realities, not the temporary trappings of the flesh.

Spiritual blessings supply mans most desperate needto be remade into the person God intended him to bethis will be the thrust of these two verses.

II.

EXEGETICALLY

Reading these two verses in the Greek text is an interesting experience.

Literally it would read something like this:

In Him also, you, the ones having heard the word, that one of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also, you, the ones having believed, were sealed (passive) with Spirit, the promised one, the holy one, who is the down-payment of our inheritance until the redemption which will give complete possession unto the praise of His glory.

The Berkeley Version is also interesting here;

In Him you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the Gospel of our salvation, have as believers in Him been stamp marked with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge-deposit of our legacy for the releasing of our deed of purchase, and all to the praise of His glory.

III.

ETYMOLOGICALLY

Seal literal sense: A device bearing a design, a name or some other words so made that it can impart an impression in relief upon a soft substance like clay or wax. When the clay or wax hardens, it permanently bears the impression of the seal.

Archaeologists find them being used 4000 B.C.

Originally they took the form of a cylinder, gradually superseded by the scarab (beetle-shaped)

Some carried on cords around neck like necklace; some cone-shaped in boxes; most in form of finger-rings

Seal uses:

As an authentication

As a mark of ratification of a covenant

As a means of protecting documents to seal against tampering

As a deputation of authority

As an official mark of ownership

IV.

APPLICABILITY Three areas of blessing for the Christian in having been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

He Etches the Image of God and His Son Upon our Being

He Gives Us the Earnest-Payment of Our Inheritance

He Empowers Us As Emissaries of our Great God

DISCUSSION

ETCHES THE IMAGE OF GOD UPON OUR BEING

Authenticates our genuineness as belonging to Him

The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. . . . (Rom. 8:16).

Does not say that the Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirit but with our spiritsummarturei; the Holy Spirit bears witnessand our own spirit bears witness.

If my spirit says I am a child of God, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit shows that I am not a child of God, then I am not a child no matter what my spirit says. The two witnesses must agree. My spirit must agree with the testimony of the Holy Spirit.

This co-witness of the Spirit of God with our spirit, whereby we are assured that we are children of God, is a very important and blessed reality. BUT IT HAS BEEN SO OFTEN MISUNDERSTOOD AND MISINTERPRETED.

How does the Spirit bear witness with our spirit? A still small voice? A feeling? emotion? impulse? The Bible nowhere affirms such leadings! All people and religious denominations who claim such subjective witness of the Holy Spirit not only contradict one anotherthey contradict the Bible. The Bible claims to be the witness of the Spirit. The Spirit of God does not contradict Himself.

Since there are no inspired men living todayand those who claim to be such contradict the word of God in what is His witness about who are the children of Godthe only witness which we have of the Spirit to us is found in His written Word. No one knows the Spirits will on any subject unless he has learned it from the written Word. Anything that claims to be the Holy Spirits teaching must not contradict this!

The Spirit of God lays down the terms by which we become a child of God, and when we believe and obey these terms then both the Holy Spirit and our own spirits testify that we are the sons of God.

WHAT A BLESSING TO HAVE SUCH A SEAL PUT UPON OUR MINDS AND HEARTS. . . . WE DONT HAVE TO DEPEND UPON FICKLE AND VACILLATING EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS . . . NOR UPON THE WHIMS AND OPINIONS OF MEN. OUR SALVATION IS AUTHENTICATED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT HIMSELF IN HIS UNCHANGING, ONCE-FOR-ALL WORD . . . NO GUESSING, NO ANXIETY.

These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God (1Jn. 5:13). THIS IS THE EMPHATIC WORD OF JOHNS WRITINGS. . . . THAT YE MAY KNOW. . . .

Glorifies (The Holy Spirit transfers some of the glory of God to our nature.)

But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit (2Co. 3:18).

Alexander Campbell said it this way in his Christian System, The word of redemption is a system of works, or deeds, on the part of God, which constitutes the most splendid series of moral facts men or angel ever saw. . . . When these facts are understood or brought into immediate contact with the mind of man, as a moral seal, they delineate the image of God upon the human soul. All the means of grace are, therefore, only the means of impressing this seal upon the heart, of bringing these moral facts to make their full impression on the soul of man. The testimony of the Holy Spirit through the apostles and the faith of those who believe and obey this testimony are the channel through which these facts, or the hand of God, draws the image on the heart and character of man. He went on to say . . . all the moral facts which can form moral character after the divine model, or which can effect a moral or religious change in man, are found in the testimony of God.

What is this image of God . . . this glory of God which is impressed or sealed upon our being? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control.

I submit these as characteristics of God which we can enjoy as blessings if we will allow the Holy Spirit to impress them upon our natures: honesty; goodness; creativeness; humor; appreciativeness; enjoyment; giving-ness.

Carol King has a phrase in her song, Way Over Yonder, And the sweet-tasting good life is so easily found . . . way over yonder, thats where Im bound. Lets appropriate that here. THE SWEET-TASTING GOOD LIFE OF GOD IS SO EASILY FOUND. . . . IF WE JUST LET THE SPIRIT ETCH IT UPON OUR BEING BY KNOWING AND DOING WHERE THE SPIRIT LEADS IN THE SPIRITS WORD.

You see, this is the work of the Spirit. God the Father is the creative source of blessing; the Son is the revealer of the possibility of such blessedness and obtainer of it in the flesh; the Holy Spirit is the agent by which this blessing may be impressed or sealed upon the nature of man!

HOW MIND STAGGERING! GOD CREATES THE BLESSING, THE SON WINS IT FOR US, THE HOLY SPIRIT TRANSFERS AND SEALS IT UPON THOSE WHO WILL ACCEPT IT BY FAITH!

Secures and protects us against being defrauded by the thief of souls.

When we are sealed by the Holy Spirit we can live confidently that there is no power in this world or the other capable of robbing us of our souls, our life, our being.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand (Joh. 10:27-28).

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life (Joh. 5:24).

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:2-3).

Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world (1Jn. 4:4).

We know that any one born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him (1Jn. 5:18).

The book of Revelation pictorializes a great host which no man can number sealed by Godprotected from the dragon and the beasts not able to be overcome by the great spiritual battle that rages between God and His enemies.

WHAT A TREMENDOUS BLESSING TO KNOW THAT WE HAVE HAD THE SEAL OF GOD PUT UPON US, NO MATTER THE WORLD WANTS TO ERADICATE US. . . . NO MATTER THAT IT MAY APPEAR AS IF THE FORCES OF UNGODLINESS WILL WIN THE STRUGGLE . . . GOD KNOWS WHO HIS ARE, HE HAS THEM MARKED AND SEALED, AND THEY ARE SECURE!

II.

HE GIVES US AN EARNEST OF OUR INHERITANCE

Holiness

What is the legacy left us by that Son of man who came to earth, born in a stable, who had not where to lay his head?

He brought us word from our Father that holiness is our legacy. The most needful, most enjoyable treasure God could will to us is holiness.

What is the deepest longing of the human soul? To be clean, to be good, to be pure, to be true, to be a beautiful-person.

This is what I want when I get to God. Bags full or banks full of gold and diamonds are not what my soul cries out for. Ivory palaces and mansions are not what I want for my eternal inheritance. I WANT, I NEED, I MUST HAVE HOLINESS!

I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. . . . Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? . . . There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 7:18 to Rom. 8:1).

Now God has taken care of my problem. He has provided me a cleansing, a goodness, a purity, a freedom from guilt, a holiness by the death of His Son. And when He comes for us this is what our great inheritance shall bewe shall be like Him.

But when we are sealed by the Holy Spiritwhen His spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are a child of God, we have a down payment on this holiness already. WE CAN NOW ENJOY GOODNESS, FREEDOM FROM GUILT, PURITY, HOLINESSA TASTE OF WHAT THE FULL INHERITANCE WILL BE!

Rest

Another aspect of the legacy left to us is rest. Jesus came and said, Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest (Mat. 11:28).

What makes work into labor? The frustration of seeing the fruits of ones work dissipatedthe agony of knowing that one has spent himself laboring in something whose fruits are only temporary and ultimately useless. THIS IS WHAT MAKES WORK INTO TIRING, FRUSTRATING, DEADENING LABOR!

If the results of our work could find completion or perfectionif we could have confirmed to us that our work was eternally useful and abiding, that it wouldnt just disappear with timewe could find perfect rest. REST IS NOT JUST THE ABSENCE OF WORK!

God has laid up for us an inheritance of rest. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them (Rev. 14:13).

But those sealed by the Holy Spirit may now have a down-payment, a taste of that rest. Paul wrote the Hebrew Christians and said, For we who are believing, are entering that rest . . . (Heb. 4:3).

Jesus said, Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal (Joh. 6:27).

Paul wrote the Corinthians, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (1Co. 15:58).

Friend, if youre sealed by the Holy Spirit, youll never get weary. Bone-tired and muscle-weak; yesbut soul-tired and spirit-weary, never!

Dominion

Man was made to have dominion. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth (Gen. 1:26).

God has promised that one day His saints shall reign with His Christ forever and ever (Rev. 22:5, etc.).

But the blessing of being sealed by the Holy Spirit is that we may now enjoy a taste of that dominion.

The exciting second chapter of Hebrews asks, What is man that thou art mindful of him? and answers by showing that while man was created to have dominion, because of sin he does not now have it, but Christ came in flesh and blood and won back mans dominion for him. HE DEFEATED THE INVADER, SATAN!

Christ, if we believe and trust Him, has set us free from being dominated by circumstances, by earthly things, by ego, by fears, by falsehoods, by others, by even Satan. IN FACT, IN CHRIST, WE HAVE DOMINION OVER CIRCUMSTANCES, OVER THINGS, OVER EVERYTHING AND MAY ENJOY AND USE EVERYTHING TO GLORIFY GOD! Mind you, I did not say we can selfishly take anything we want and use it in a way to bring shame upon God.

Whatever circumstances God sees fit to give us here, whatever talents, whatever worldly things, whatever associations, WE ARE RULERS-OVER TO GLORIFY GOD AND REJOICE IN. . . .

For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christs; and Christ is Gods (1Co. 3:21-22).

. . . in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Rom. 8:37).

ALL THINGS ARE YOURSMORE THAN CONQUERORS! What blessednesswhat happinesswhat glory. Friend, if youve been sealed with the imprint of Gods Holy Spirit, you have been certified and authorized to be a joint heir with His Son, and to have dominion with Him.

III.

EMPOWERS US AS EMISSARIES OF OUR GREAT GOD

Certifies us as authentic representatives of Almighty God

When the Spirit of the Holy God is etched upon our hearts . . . when we are sealed with the Spirit of Christ . . . it is an announcement to the world that we are on business for the King.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (Joh. 13:34-35).

J. B. Phillips on 2Co. 3:3 You are an open letter (epistle) about Christ which we ourselves have written, not with pen and ink but with the Spirit of the living God. Our message has been engraved not in stone, but in living men and women.

Many false prophets have gone out into the world (1Jn. 4:1-6). The world desperately needs some authenticating mark upon the true prophets. That mark is the seal of the Holy Spirit, one who preaches the true apostolic message and one who lives the true apostolic message.

If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine (Joh. 8:31). IF YOU ARE SEALED BY HIS SPIRIT THROUGH HIS WORD, THEN YOU ARE A CERTIFIED DISCIPLE OF HIS, AND THE WHOLE WORLD WILL KNOW. . . . YOU WILL BE HAPPY AND BLESSED AND SO WILL OTHERS!

Certifies the authority of our message

When the image of God is stamped upon us by the Holy Spirit, we will proclaim and live the truth and the power of His truth preached and lived will be vindicated in the world.

The work of the Holy Spirit is to convince the world of sin, righteousness and the judgment. The only agency by which the Spirit works in doing this is the written, preached and lived Word of God.

But in the midst of all the failures and inadequacies of mens philosophical, political and ethical systems, THOSE SEALED BY THE SPIRIT ARE CONDUCTORS OF THE GREATEST POWER IN THE UNIVERSE.

The power to convert men and change their eternal destinies is more awesome than the power to create this universe!

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature (2Pe. 1:3-4).

For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ . . . (2Co. 10:3-5).

WHAT A BLESSING TO KNOW THAT WE ARE SEALED BY HIS SPIRIT TO BECOME CHANNELS THROUGH WHICH THE AWESOME POWER OF HIS WORD WORKS. . . . AND IT SHALL NEVER RETURN UNTO HIM VOID!

Certifies the power of His divine providence on our behalf

When the nature of God is etched upon our minds through the Holy Spirits agent, the Word of God, we know God as our beneficent, loving, acting, Father who is ready to use all His creation on our behalf.

We know that God works everything for good for those who love him, and are called according to his purpose (Rom. 8:28).

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us . . . (Eph. 3:20).

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory . . . (2Co. 4:17).

Even angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation (Heb. 1:14).

The Old Testament gives us a vivid account of Gods providential power being used for those with His mark upon them. Ezekiel chapter 9 pictures Gods faithful ones being marked with His seal upon them. Then the book of Daniel shows God using kings, kingdoms, circumstances and creation to provide exactly and abundantly what those marked by Him must have to fulfill His purpose in their lives.

He is the same God today to those with His seal upon them. THE BOOK OF REVELATION IS HIS MESSAGE THAT HE IS EVEN NOW USING KINGS AND KINGDOMS, CIRCUMSTANCES AND CREATION TO SERVE HIS SEALED ONES! WHAT POWER AND WHAT POWERS ARE OURS!

CONCLUSION

SO THE BLESSING OF BEING SEALED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

Etches the Image of God Upon Our Being

Gives Us the Earnest-Payment of Our Inheritance

Empowers Us as Emissaries of our Great God

II.

A WARNING

You are either sealed by the Holy Spirit or marked with the mark of the beast.

The great division of mankind in the book of Revelation is between only two kinds of humanity . . . those with the mark of God upon their foreheads, and those with the mark of the beast.

Satan puts his mark upon all those not sealed by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus told the Jews in Joh. 8:1-59 who wanted to kill Him because He told them the truth, You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your fathers desires.

The seal or mark of Satan is the mark of the beast in Revelation and is given to those who worship the beast, political and military power; those who worship the false prophet, false religion and doctrine; those who worship the harlot, worldliness, carnal-mindedness.

Satan can even counterfeit the seal of the Holy Spirit

The beast and the false prophet are able to work signs (false signs) that will deceive men and women if they do not know what the true sealing of the Holy Spirit is.

Satan is able to change himself into an angel of light to deceive the ignorant.

He will try to deceive us into thinking that the immature, temporary miracles of the Holy Spirit are the seal of God.

He will try to deceive us into thinking that Pharisaic attitudes toward works and self-righteousness are the seal of God.

III.

BUT WHAT IS THE SEAL?

How do we know we are sealed by the Holy Spirit?

How do we know others are sealed by the Holy Spirit?

As we said at the beginning, When the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits

But what does the Holy Spirit witness?

Very simply, He bears witness in His Word that those Believing, Repenting and Obeying God are sealed by God as His B.R.O.

IV.

NOW WILL YOU JOIN ME IN THIS SONG AS A PRAYER TO GOD FOR HIS SEALING

O to be like Thee! blessed Redeemer:
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly Ill forfeit all of earths treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.
O to be like Thee! O to be like Thee!
Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

Appleburys Comments

Christ Criticized by Pharisees and Lawyers
Scripture

Luk. 11:37-54 Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. 38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed himself before dinner. 39 And the Lord said unto him, Now ye the Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness, 40 Ye foolish ones, did not he that made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, all things are clean unto you.

42 But woe unto you Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and every herb, and pass over justice and the love of God: but these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 43 Woe unto you Pharisees! for ye love the chief seats in the synagogues, and the salutations in the marketplaces. 44 Woe unto you! for ye are as the tombs which appear not, and the men that walk over them know it not.
45 And one of the lawyers answering saith unto him, Teacher, in saying this thou reproachest us also. 46 And he said, Woe unto you lawyers also! for ye load men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 So ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers: for they killed them, and ye build their tombs. 49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles; and some of them they shall kill and persecute; 50 that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; 51 from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary: yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation. 52 Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
53 And when he was come out from thence, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press upon him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things; 54 laying wait for him, to catch something out of his mouth.

Comments

a Pharisee asketh him to dine with him.This was not the earliest meal of the day nor the latest. Luke makes a difference between the two in Luk. 14:12. The Pharisee had probably invited Jesus to have lunch with him. Why did they continue to invite Him to their homes, since they used the occasions to criticize Him?

had not first bathed himself.See Mar. 7:3-4 for the customs of the Jews. Jesus did not observe this ceremonial washing. He was criticized for His failure to conform. The Pharisees also criticized His disciples for the same thing (Mat. 15:1-20). In neither case was it a matter of sanitation. The Jews were offended because He did not observe their traditions. He condemned them because they made Gods word void by their traditions.

And the Lord said unto him.He had an answer for their criticism. He said that the Pharisees were more interested in outer cleanliness than in inward purity. He left no chance for them to misunderstand; He was talking about their impure hearts. He was aware of their motives in inviting Him to dine with them. He knew that they were full of extortion and wickedness. His judgment was severe. He said, You foolish ones, dont you know that he that made the outside of the cup made the inside also? They were not using good sense. It was just as important to keep the inside clean as the outside. This was a blow against their hypocritical display of righteousness.

But give for alms those things which are within.When you give something to help the poor, give what is within and all things are clean unto you. This was His answer to the issue of cleanliness. What He was giving was out of a pure heart. His motives were pure in helping such as the man with the dumb demon. If they had invited Him from a pure motive, they would not have been critical about ceremonial cleanliness. But their purpose was to condemn; it came out of an inward part that was full of extortion and wickedness.

But woe unto you Pharisees.The three woes condemn the Pharisees for (1) abuses in the matter of tithing, (2) pride expressed in the desire to have the chief seats in the synagogue, and (3) their contaminating influence over the people.

They were careful to give a tithe of those things that were relatively insignificant, but passed over such matters as justice and love of God. They loved the exalted places in the synagogues and the salutations in the market places that showed their power over the people. But the worst criticism was the last, for they were like tombs that men walk over without realizing that the tombs were there. But they were ceremonially contaminated even though they were unaware of it. They had come in contact with death, and were unclean. In the same way, they were being contaminated by the Pharisees without realizing what was happening to them.

And one of the lawyers.Teacher, when you say this about the Pharisees, you are condemning us too. Jesus didnt hesitate to accept the challenge; He pronounced three woes on the lawyers also. They were loading burdens on men that were hard to bear, but refused to touch them with a finger. See also Mat. 23:4. They were building the tombs of the prophets. This is slightly different from the charge against the Pharisees whom He likened to hidden tombs. The lawyers were building the tombs of the prophets ostensibly in their honor, but they were joining with the Pharisees who were seeking a cause to kill The Prophet. Their hypocritical display simply proved that they were true children of those who had been guilty of murdering the prophets of God. The responsibility for shedding innocent blood, from Abel to Zachariah, was to fall on that generation which was soon to crucify the Son of God.

for ye took away the key of knowledge.They had taken away the key to salvation which is the knowledge of the Scriptures. They had done it by their traditions, teachings, and practices. They had not entered the door of salvation that God had opened for His people, and they were hindering others who wanted to do so.

the scribes and Pharisees began to press upon him vehemently.They were waiting for the opportunity to condemn Him. Their anger had been aroused by the rebuke He had administered. They were waiting to get even. Their provocative attack was designed to cause Him to say something that would give them cause to condemn Him.

Summary

The lessons which Jesus taught stimulated His disciples and the crowds to ask questions. The disciples wanted Him to teach them how to pray. He answered with an example, an illustration, and some additional explanatory remarks. The Lords Prayer showed them how to use the elements of prayer; the story of the Friend at Midnight showed them the right approach to make; the remarks that followed showed that prayer is like the requests of a son for his father to give him the things he needs.
Not everyone was interested in learning from the Teacher; many only watched for an opportunity to criticize Him. The miracle of casting out the dumb demon caused some to say that He had performed it by the power of Beelzebub. But others ignored it and demanded a sign from heaven.
Jesus answered their false charge by a three-fold argument: (1) the divided kingdom, (2) the work of Jewish exorcists, and (3) the story of the strong man. His devastating rebuttal led to the verdict: He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. Indeed, they were like the empty house occupied by a demon and seven others worse than himself; their last state would be worse than the first. Rejecting Him would lead to their destruction.
Their demand for a sign was to be answered in the sign of Jonah. The resurrection would establish His claims, for by it He was to be designated the Son of God.
A Pharisee had invited Him to have lunch with him. Jesus did not observe the ceremonies of these self-appointed leaders. He answered their criticism by showing the need for purity within, something they so evidently lacked.
The lawyers who were present took up the debate and accused Him of condemning them also. Jesus answered with a list of hypocritical practices of which they were guilty. By their example and by their teaching, they had taken away the knowledge of Gods Word which is the key to salvation.
As He left the Pharisees house, the scribes and Pharisees continued to harass Him, hoping to find some excuse to condemn Him.

Questions

What led the disciples to ask Jesus to teach them to pray?

How did He teach them?

Where else may we find information on this important subject?

What is known about the prayer life of John the Baptist?

What may we learn from the contrast between the prayers of the prophets of Baal and the prayer of Elijah?

What are some of the things Jesus taught the disciples to say when they prayed?

Why pray for forgiveness?

What is the point of the parable of the Friend at Midnight?

Why did Jesus say, Ask, seek, knock?

10.

What does the reference to a sons requests to his father teach about prayer?

11.

What part does the Holy Spirit have in answering prayer?

12.

Why did some charge that Jesus was casting out demons by Beelzebub?

13.

What were the three answers Jesus gave to this false charge? What is meant by each of them?

14.

Why did He say, He that is not with me is against me?

15.

What is the lesson of the unclean spirit?

16.

Why did the woman from the crowd speak words of praise about His mother?

17.

Why did Jesus answer her by speaking about those who hear the word of God?

18.

What kind of a sign were some seeking?

19.

What is meant by the sign of Jonah?

20.

Why is the resurrection of vital importance to us?

21.

What did Jesus mean by saying that something greater than Solomon is here?

22.

How does the parable of the Lamp explain Jesus answer to their request for signs?

23.

Why did the Pharisee invite Jesus to dine with him?

24.

Why did he criticize Jesus?

25.

How did Jesus meet the criticism?

26.

What did He mean by giving those things for alms that are within?

27.

On what issues did He condemn the Pharisees?

28.

What was the reaction of the lawyers to His criticism of the Pharisees?

29.

What did He say to the lawyers?

30.

What was the key of knowledge?

31.

How had they taken it away?

32.

What did the Pharisees and scribes do as Jesus left the house?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(37) A certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him.On the act, and the feeling which it implied, see Note on Luk. 7:36. The word translated dine implies a morning or noon-tide meal, as distinct from the supper of the evening.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

46. JESUS, DINING WITH A PHARISEE, UTTERS WOES ON SCRIBES, PHARISEES, AND LAWYERS, Luk 11:37-54 .

We have here a part of the war waged by the hierarchy against Jesus in regard to ceremonial washing. Fully knowing the state of the controversy, a scribe, strenuous on that point, invites our Lord, personally, to a dinner, in a company like-minded with himself. Our Lord on his entrance accepts the issue, by omitting the much contested ablutions. The Pharisee is amazed, and our Lord, recognizing the drift of the company, unfolds the character and destiny of the hierarchy to their own view. The strain of indignant oratory contains some of the same strokes of rebuke which he addressed at still greater length, and with mightier exhibition of power, on a more public occasion at a later period. See Matthew 22.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

37. Besought him Doubtless in full concert with the set mentioned in Luk 11:53.

Sat down In the Greek lay down or reclined, as was the custom of the ancients at their meals.

The narrative that follows suggests the following queries and answers: What were the grounds of opposition on the part of the Jews, and the reasons of their rejection of Jesus of Nazareth? We may answer: First, While Jesus accepted Moses, and made the Old Testament the basis of his system, he assailed and aimed to abolish, as false and corrupt, the pretended oral tradition, with its infinite mass of petty distinctions and ritual observances, in which the Jewish doctors so much delighted, and which, was the source of all their influence and power with the people. Second, Whereas they desired a Messiah of a political and warlike character, Jesus was a moral type, and only a Saviour from sin; and this was an unpardonable disappointment of all their hopes. Third, Even the ceremonial law of Moses, with all its sacrifices and passovers, and its great body of priesthood, Jesus proposed to abolish, as being all fulfilled and centered in HIMSELF; thus making the powerful and ruling class his unanimous enemies. Even the pride of the Jewish state, with its temple and favour with God, he proposed to abolish by bringing the hated Gentiles into the Church of God, and to reduce Israel to the level of the rest of the world. Thus it was that rabbies, priests, and rulers held him as a subverter, who aimed at the destruction of their interests and power.

What were the reasons that the common people heard him gladly? First, They had no power or position which they feared he would overthrow, so that they could hear him without previous prejudice or jealousy. Second, His miracles, through all their regions, aroused the whole mass of their community; and as they were entirely miracles of love, a gratitude and tenderness towards him arose in their hearts. His miracles of mercy prepared the way for his lessons of mercy. And as he descended to the lowly, and spoke in popular parables and beautiful analogies, drawn from nature, he won their hearts. Third, He spoke to the hearts of men; to their consciences; to their intuitive feelings; to their wants, and to their sorrows. He showed them their misery; and when he spoke of forgiving their sins, they were taught by his miracles to see that he had such power on earth.

Fourth, They could then believe that a being so powerful, and so good, and so wise, was the son of God, the Messiah who would establish the kingdom of God; of which they had no clear idea, but believed it would be, like him, powerful, good, and glorious. Why should they not hear him gladly and love him freely?

What methods did the ruling class take to ruin Jesus? First, They charged him with blasphemy in making claim to be the Son of God; with being thereby an impostor and deceiver. Second, They solved the problem of his miracles by attributing them to diabolical agency. Third, They endeavoured by questions to draw out not only his opposition to traditional maxims and rites, but his purpose to supersede the ritual of Moses, the Temple, and the Jewish pre-eminence as a favoured nation. Fourth, They endeavoured to embroil him with government as a disturber and pretender to royalty, and finally procured his death as an enemy to Caesar.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Now when he had spoken a Pharisee asks him to dine with him, and he went in, and sat down to meat, and when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first drenched (baptizo) himself before dinner.’

It may well be that Jesus had deliberately refrained from ceremonially washing his hands here in order to introduce the subject matter of His speech, for Mar 7:2 suggests that He usually conformed to that requirement (unless Mar 7:2 was a polite way of indirectly hinting that He also had not done so). The point, however, that Luke is stressing is the emphasis of the Pharisee on outward observance. To them it mattered not what inward sins Jesus had brought with Him (like the inward sins of Luk 11:53-54) as long as He was following the correct rituals. (Luke is basically hinting that the attitude of some of the Pharisees was such that they could, as it were, happily connive in the killing of the prophets (Luk 11:47-51), as long as they did it with clean hands).

‘He marvelled.’ This may mean that he said something (but compare Luk 20:26), although not antagonistically (see Luk 4:22; Luk 7:9; Luk 8:25; Luk 9:43; Luk 11:14; Luk 20:26), for Luke does not add ‘within himself’ (contrast Luk 7:39).

The ceremonial ‘washing of the hands’ before eating was one of the tenets of the Pharisees on which they laid great stress. It was not enjoined in Scripture but was an additional element added by the Traditions of the Elders, the oral Law. It was not strictly a simple hand washing, but a ritual mini-ceremony. They believed that because of the possibility of unknown contamination by persons who were ritually unclean it was necessary to wash both before every meal and in between courses. And this involved a complicated process. The water for washing had to be taken from large stone jars which had been kept ‘clean’ so that the water itself was kept ritually clean. Such water could be used for no other purpose. First all dirt had to be removed. Then the hands might be held with the fingers pointed upwards and water was poured over them and had to run down to at least the wrist. After this, while the hands were wet, each had to be cleansed, seemingly with ‘the fist’ of the other, probably by the joint action of rubbing the palm over the fist. But the water on their hands was now unclean so the hands were then held downwards and water poured over them again so that it began at the wrists and ran off the end of the fingers. That was one way of doing it.

Alternately this might all be done by dipping the hands up to the wrist in a vessel containing clean water, again apparently rubbing on ‘the fist’. Then the hands would be clean.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Woeful State of Those Whose Light Is Darkness, And Who Therefore Come Under His Woes (11:37-52).

But sadly there are those whose eyes turn away from the light. Instead of their eyes being fixed on His words they are turned to other words. And those words keep them in darkness, as the next incident reveals. This incident is said to take place in the house of a Pharisee to which Jesus was invited for a meal, but it is clear that there are a good number of Pharisees and Scribes there. This suggests that there were many of them who were still willing to eat with Him and to give His words consideration. But they clearly only did it on sufferance. They were giving Him the opportunity to conform to their ways. When He rather showed them the failings of their ways they were not pleased, and rather than admitting the truth and opening their eyes to His light, they sought to deal with Him. They could criticise each other (and did), but they would not accept criticism from Him. It was necessary for Him to conform Himself to them.

The ways of the Scribes and Pharisees described here were precisely the opposite of His teaching about the light. They illustrated walking in darkness. Instead of seeking for the divine light to shine into men’s innermost hearts they turned the searchlight on external practises, and in general ignored the inner heart. Their eye was not opened to the light so that it could enter within. They did not want the light in their inner heart. The Samaritans, with whom they are paralleled in the chiasmus (Luk 9:52-56), rejected Jesus because of the physical place to which He was going. They did not consider His inner heart. These reject Him because of the physical things He refuses to conform to. They too do not look at His inner heart. So neither looked at the heart. But in the case of the Scribes and Pharisees this will lead them into woe because of their privileged position. They will be ‘brought into testing’.

This is the final passage in the Section of Luke that relates to the Lord’s Prayer. In relationship to the Lord’s Prayer these are they are who will be ‘brought into testing’ because their eyes are not fixed on Him. For them there is no protection. All that awaits is judgment.

Analysis.

While in general the chiastic pattern is held here, the need not to alter Jesus’ word patterns and to introduce the two threefold woes, prevented a simple chiasmus. Compare the speech in Luk 6:20-46 where it was even more so.

a Now as he spoke, a Pharisee asks him to dine with him, and he went in, and sat down to meat, and when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first drenched himself before dinner (Luk 11:37-38).

b The Lord said to him, “Now you the Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness” ’(Luk 11:39).

c “You foolish ones, did not He who made the outside make the inside also?” (Luk 11:40).

b “But give for alms those things which are within, and behold, all things are clean to you” (Luk 11:41).

d “But woe to you Pharisees! for you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and pass over justice and the love of God, but these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone” (Luk 11:42).

d “Woe to you Pharisees! for you love the chief seats in the synagogues, and the salutations in the marketplaces” (Luk 11:43).

d “Woe to you! for you are as the tombs which are not visible, and the men who walk over them are not aware of it” (Luk 11:44).

e And one of the lawyers answering says to him, “Teacher, in saying this you reproach us also” (Luk 11:45).

d And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! for you load men with burdens grievous to be borne, and you yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers” (Luk 11:46).

d “Woe to you! for you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. So are you witnesses and consent to the works of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs, therefore also said the wisdom of God, “I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation” (Luk 11:47-51).

d “Woe to you lawyers! for you took away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered” (Luk 11:52).

a And when he was come out from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press on him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things, laying wait for him, to catch something out of his mouth’ (Luk 11:53-54).

Note how in ‘a’ Jesus ‘comes in’ and the Pharisees concern is that He has not ceremonially washed His hands, while in the parallel He ‘goes out’ and the Pharisees and Scribes are out to metaphorically ‘throw dirt’ at Him. This is then followed by a small chiasmus contrasting outward and inward cleansing (b, c), and a larger chiasmus contrasting the two sets of ‘woes’, one on the Pharisees and the other on the Scribes (d, e).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jesus Rebukes the Pharisees and Lawyers Over Hypocrisy ( Mat 23:1-36 , Mar 12:38-40 ) In Luk 11:37-54 Jesus rebukes the Pharisees (Luk 11:37-44) and lawyers (Luk 11:38-54) because of their hypocrisy and rejection of God’s Word.

Luk 11:39 Comments – The image of “ravening” is like a predator who greedily stalks and kills its prey for itself. The Pharisees lived off of the spoil of others.

Luk 11:41 Comments – Give from the heart in kindness and the whole person will be clean.

Scripture References – Note:

Joh 15:3, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”

Joh 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

Luk 11:43 Comments – They were seeking man’s praises.

Joh 5:44, “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?”

Luk 11:44 Comments – That is, even though they seemed good to others, inside they were spiritually dead to God.

Luk 11:46 Comments The phrase “with one of your fingers” refers to someone making the least amount of effort. The lawyers were making burdensome laws; but they were making very little effort to live by them. A similar s made in Luk 11:20 when Jesus tells the people that He casts out demons with the “finger of God,” which means it takes God very little effort to defeat the kingdom of Satan.

Luk 11:20, “But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.”

Luk 11:50 “may be required of this generation” – Word Study on “of this generation” – Thayer says the phrase “of this generation” means, “men of the same stock,” or, “family.” Perhaps this includes the ancestors of those who were evil, along with their offspring, which are the lawyers, the scribes, and the Pharisees.

Luk 11:50 Comments – Those who were the children of the flesh have always persecuted the children of faith. Heb 11:35-40 says that the world was not worthy of the prophets sent by God.

Heb 11:38, “( Of whom the world was not worthy 🙂 they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

Illustration:

Gal 4:29, “But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.”

Luk 11:51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

Luk 11:51 “From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias” Comments – Abel was the first innocent blood to be shed in the Scriptures, and Zachariah’s blood was the last innocent bloodshed in the Old Testament.

Gen 4:8, “And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.”

2Ch 24:20-22, “And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD. Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The LORD look upon it, and require it.”

F. F. Bruce tells us that it is likely that the Old Testament that Jesus was familiar with began with Genesis and ended with the books of Chronicles. He uses this verse as evidence. [229] Jesus was then saying that the Jews were party and guilty of shedding blood from the beginning to the end of the Hebrew Scriptures.

[229] F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963), 97.

Luk 11:51 “verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation” – Comments – How could this generation of Jews who lived during the time of Jesus be held guilty of the blood of Abel? Heb 11:4 tells us that Abel still speaks his testimony of God’s standard of righteousness. Thus, the Jews rejected his testimony and will be judged with him who shed his blood, which was his brother Cain.

Heb 11:4, “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.”

In the parable in Luk 20:9-19, Jesus again deals with this issue.

Luk 11:53-54 Comments The Jewish Leaders Plot to Kill Jesus The Gospel of Luke can be broken down in the phases of God’s plan of redemption: predestination, calling, justification, indoctrination, perseverance, and glorification. Luk 11:53-54 reflects the fact that this section of Luke’s Gospel (Luk 10:38 to Luk 17:10) places emphasis upon the phase of persecutions in the Christian life, having entered a season of persecutions, culminating in His Passion. From then on, the Pharisees and scribes began to hate Him terribly and to interrogate Him, while plotting to catch Jesus saying something wrong. Jesus had spoken the piecing truth, cutting to their hearts.

Heb 4:12, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

The Jewish leaders rejected Jesus words (Joh 8:47). So will people respond to us as we speak God’s Word. Note Mat 10:24-33.

Joh 8:47, “He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Woes upon the Pharisees and. Lawyers.

The Pharisee’s offense:

v. 37. And as He spake, a certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with him; and He went in and. sat down to meat.

v. 38. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner.

v. 39. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.

v. 40. Ye fools, did not He that made that which is without make that which is within also?

v. 41. But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.

See Mat 23:1-39. While Jesus was still speaking to the people, a Pharisee that may have been desirous of becoming more closely acquainted with Him invited Jesus to take a meal with him, the earlier one of the day. The Lord accepted, went into the house with His host, but purposely omitted the customary washing and sat down at once at the table in the usual recumbent position. The Pharisee was greatly surprised that He had not washed before the meal. Note: Literally, we read that He had not baptized Himself; another bit of evidence that the word “baptize” in the New Testament is not confined to the act of complete immersion. The wonder of the Pharisee may have found its expression in disapproving words as well as in disgusted glances. But Jesus was now ready to teach a lesson, brought on by the circumstances. He said: Ye Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but the inside of you is full of robbery and wickedness, thus explaining His figure at once. What was inside the cup and the platter was dishonest, stolen goods. Thus Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because they stressed outside purity, the semblance of great holiness, while their heart was full of every evil thing. This showed their foolishness; for God made both the outside and the inside, and He puts the emphasis upon the right condition of the heart. If they therefore now would give what they had, especially what they had obtained by unjust means, the things which were within the dishes, as alms, then they would straighten out matters again, then everything would be clean. In this way they would show the proper disposition of heart toward Christ and God. It is the peculiarity of all self-righteous hypocrites that they pay much attention to customs and ceremonies, but think lightly of gross sins which pollute heart and mind.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Luk 11:37 . ] that is to say, what had preceded at Luk 11:29 ff.

] refers no more than at Mat 22:4 to the principal meal, but to the breakfast (in opposition to Kuinoel, de Wette, and others). See Luk 14:12 .

, , , Theophylact.

In the following discourse itself, Luke, under the guidance of the source he is using, gives a much more limited selection from the Logia , abbreviating and generalizing much of the contents.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

Luk 11:37-54 . See on Mat 23:1 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

3. Two Manner of Enemies (Luk 11:37-54)

37And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine [breakfast, ] with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat [reclined]. 38And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. 39And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but 40your inward part is full of ravening [rapacity] and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he, 41that made that which is without, make that which is within also? But rather [om., rather] give alms of such things as ye have [the contents, ]; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. 42But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 43Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and10 greetings in the markets. 44Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites [om., scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! V. O.11]! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over [men in walking over] them are not aware of them. 45Then answered one of the lawyers [or, men learned in the law], and said unto him, Master [Teacher], thus saying thou reproachest [art reviling] us also. 46And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. 47Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your 48fathers killed them. Truly [So then] ye bear witness that ye allow [are witnesses and consent to] the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and [but] ye build12 their sepulchres. 49Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: 50That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; 51From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple [lit., the house]: verily [yea] I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 52Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. 53And as he said these things unto them [And when he had gone out from thence13], the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently [to be intensely embittered against him], and to provoke him to speak of many [various, things: 54Laying wait for him, and seeking [om., and seeking14] to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Luk 11:37. .That the Pharisees invitation came to Jesus while He was uttering what immediately precedes, Luke does not tell us, but only that it was given while the Saviour was engaged in speaking. It is therefore not impossible that this event belongs to a later period of the Saviours sojourn and activity in Galilee, when the hostility against Him had risen to a still higher pitch. On the other hand, the invitation of the Pharisee just at the moment becomes doubly intelligible if we compare Mar 3:20. Perhaps this breakfast was offered the Saviour by a Pharisee dwelling in the neighborhood, who might fear that Jesus through the press of the people could not reach the dwelling of his host.

Breakfast, .We are here not to understand the chief meal, but a lighter prandium, which was taken earlier and required less time. That the disposition of the entertainer towards the Saviour was not on that account by any means a friendly one, sufficiently appears from the connection.

Luk 11:38.Had not first washed.Respecting the washings and purifications of the Pharisees before a meal, see the detailed statements of Lightfoot on Mat 15:2; Sepp, L. J. ii. p. 343.We have no ground for supposing that the Saviour did not commonly wash Himself before a meal. Now, perhaps, He omitted it because He had just accepted the invitation, or because He was wearied by the days work which He had hitherto accomplished.

Luk 11:39. And the Lord said unto Him.Against the charge that the Saviour in the here-following conversation at table in some measure lost out of mind the requirement of courtesy towards His host, we have simply to bring to mind that such a divine rudeness is everywhere in place (Ebrard). If we consider that the host by his surprise had at the very beginning violated the duty of hospitality and benevolence; that they had scarcely even sat down when this injurious remark was made to the Saviour; that the Saviour had respect not merely to the matter but especially to the principle and the intention of the charge, we cannot then be in the least surprised that He emphatically vindicates Himself, and combats the hypocrisy of those who had censured Him. Every-day decorum gives place here to an infinitely higher duty. We must, however, doubtless assume that the Pharisee had expressed his astonishment in some way or other, since the Saviour would otherwise have taken a different occasion for uttering such a Philippic.

Now do ye Pharisees.It is known how remarkable an agreement there is between this rebuke of the Saviours and that which Matthew, Luke 23, has given much more in detail. The question which of the two Evangelists has communicated this rebuke in the most exact connection has been alternately answered in favor of Matthew and Luke. See, e.g. the view in Meyer on Mat 23:1. It is, however, to be remarked, 1, that the first reproach which, according to Luke, the Saviour addresses to the Pharisees, Luk 11:39-40, bears internal traces of having been uttered at a meal, and that also the coming forward of the scribe, Luk 11:45-46, by which a new rebuke is called forth, has internal probability. On the ground of this it appears not to admit of doubt that the Saviour really directed against a Pharisee in Galilee, on occasion of a breakfast, several similar rebukes to those which we find in Matthew, Luke 23, directed in yet greater number against the scribes and Pharisees at Jerusalem. 2. On the other side, however, the denunciatory discourse in Matthew affords so many proofs of an internal connection and a living totality, that the originality and exactness of its redaction cannot possibly be denied. It Isaiah , 3, undoubtedly possible that the Saviour, as occasion offered, repeated several rebukes against the Pharisees in Galilee and those of like mind in Juda, but less probable that a whole series of rebukes, with citation of the same passage of Scripture and the same denunciation at the end, was twice delivered. It is more simple, therefore, 4, to assume that Luke is indeed right in representing the Saviour during a meal as uttering a discourse of rebuke against the Pharisees and scribes, but that in this he has taken the liberty of inserting at the same time per anticipationem several similar expressions, which, as appears from Matthew, the Saviour actually uttered only in the last days of His life, which Luke, however, on account of their similar character, communicates here, while in consequence of this he does not recur to the last denunciatory discourse. As to the whole matter, the opinion that the Evangelists have taken up elements of earlier discourses of Jesus in later ones and the reverse (Lange) can only be rejected in principle by those whose harmonistics are controlled by a somewhat mechanical theory of inspiration.

, …Not an antithesis merely of now in opposition to an understood (Meyer); for we have not a single proof that the Saviour considers the former generation of Pharisees as better than the present, but rather in the sense of eo jam perventum est, which, perhaps, in view of the character of holy irony borne by the whole discourse, is best translated by full well, equivalent to this is the way, they are on the right way to, &c.

Luk 11:39. But your inward part.Not a contraction for the inside of your cup, to which Mat 23:25 appears to point, but the interior of the persons in contrast with the exterior of the cup. In Matthew the opposition between outer and inner side of the enjoyment of life appears more prominent. In the form given by Luke the outwardly purified cup is opposed to the inwardly corrupted heart of the drinker.

Luk 11:40. Ye fools.Since God has created the inside as well as the outside, one as much as the other must be held holy; and it is not only evil but foolish to wish to separate, even in thoughtto say nothing of actthat which in the nature of things is absolutely inseparable.

Luk 11:41. But rather give alms.It appears to us entirely against the spirit and intent of this discourse of the Lord, to wish to find here an actual precept how alone they could bring about genuine purity. In this case certainly there would have had to follow in the future as the motive ; and what now stands: . . appears to be meant to indicate to us how soon anything in their eyes was purified,so soon, that is, as only they had lavished for an ostentatious almsgiving. The Saviour said date not datis, since they already actually did it, but He will urge them in the Imperative only to continue this. We thus come spontaneously to the ironical interpretation (Erasmus, Kuinoel, a. o.) in this way: What more would be yet necessary than to designate, set apart, the contents for alms; for thereby the whole inward impurity has at once disappeared. That there is also a holy irony appears from Pro 1:26, and elsewhere. All attempts to find here a definite moral commandment which is meant in earnest, appear to us forced in the extreme, nor may we forget that the Saviour ends with: , that is, e vestro (perverso) judicio. Had He here wished to speak of actual objective purity, this addition would have been entirely superfluous. [This is a very doubtful interpretation. There seems no sufficient reason for doubting that our Lord means to commend practical benevolence as better than any scrupulosity about ceremonial purity. Instead of any excessive anxiety, He says, about having the outside of your vessels duly purified, it would be better to give their contents to the poor. Such a spirit of beneficence will render any merely ceremonial defects of small account.C. C. S.]

Luk 11:42. Ye tithe.Moses had aforetime required that they should bring the tenth of all their possessions, as an offering to the sanctuary. Num 18:21; Deu 14:23. The perverseness of the Pharisees consisted in this, that they applied the command to the most insignificant trifles, e.g. mint and rue, and on the other hand neglected inviolable requirements of the Divine law. They forgot judgment respecting themselves first of all, in the sense, that is, in which the Saviour had required it, Joh 7:24; and at the same time the love of God, considered as the genitive of object, and according to Matthew, moreover, faithfulness, (Luk 11:23). Thus did they violate the noblest duties towards God, their neighbor, and themselves.

These ought ye to have done.It is an admirable proof of the heavenly composure and impartiality of our Lord, that instead of abrogating the fulfilment of the minor duties, or declaring it unimportant, He on the other hand permits and commands it, but then also insists with the best right that the higher duties should at least be fulfilled not less conscientiously than the rest. Comp. Mat 23:23.

Luk 11:43. The uppermost seats greetings.Comp. Mat 23:6-7, and see Lange, ad loc.

Luk 11:44. Graves which appear not.In a somewhat different form the same rebuke is expressed in Mat 23:27. There the Saviour condemns especially the ornamenting and decking out of a thing that was inwardly abominable; here the consequence of it is brought forward; the whitewashed grave as such is scarcely to be recognized any longer, and one can therefore go over it without knowing it; so may one come in contact with the Pharisees, without at once receiving an impression of their inward moral corruption. [I should here suppose that in the two passages two different classes of graves are referred to. Here the humbler grave of the common people, which in time might sink into the earth and be walked over without notice, thereby defiling the passers-by; and in the passage in Matthew, on the other hand, the more pompous sepulchres of the rich, whose magnificent decorations were so poorly in agreement with the corruption which they concealed within. The application of the two images is not essentially different.C. C. S.].

Luk 11:45. One of the lawyers.There is no ground for thinking that this belonged himself to the sect of the Sadducees (Paulus). On the other hand, it seems that we must assume that the learned caste of the maintained a somewhat aristocratic position with reference to the great mass of the Pharisees, and that this man wished to remind our Lord: If thou speakest thus, thou wilt not only raise against thee the plebs, but also the men of science; not only, so to speak, the laici, but also the clerici. He wishes to conjure down the tempest of denunciation, and to overawe the Saviour; with what poor success will immediately appear.

Luk 11:46. Woe unto you also, ye lawyers.Comp. Mat 23:4. Gradus: digito uno attingere, digitis tangere, digito movere, manu tollere, humero imponere. Hoc cogebant populum, illud ipsi refugiebant. Bengel.

Luk 11:47. Ye build the sepulchres.Comp. Mat 23:29-31.Not the building of the sepulchres in and of itself, but the connection which they thereby proved themselves to have with the prophet-murdering race of old, is condemned by our Lord. Fathers and children together did only one work,the former killed the messengers of God, the latter buried them; the former incurred, the latter perpetuated, the damnable guilt of blood; and while they apparently honored the prophets, they had towards God, who had sent them, the same enmity at heart as the murderers of the prophets. For other views, see Lange, ad loc.

Luk 11:48. But ye build.It is of course understood that it is still the graves of the prophets which are meant. If they had been of a better sort than their fathers, they would have erected no monuments of a damnable deed, which ought rather to be buried in the dust of oblivion. Now, however, when they spoke with so much ado of their fathers, they with their apparently honored the prophets, but in effect their murderers, andthemselves.

Luk 11:49. Therefore also said the wisdom of God.Therefore, that is, because you have part of the guilt and are ripe for the punishment of your fathers; the wisdom of God has also said, &c. The Lord appears hereby to mean that through Him the wisdom of God speaks personally to the children of men. The view that the Saviour here cites an ancient declaration of God, lost to us (Paulus, Von Hengel), is inadmissible, as contrary to the analogy of all other citations of Jesus, as well as to the evangelical tradition itself, which attributed these words, with Mat 23:34, to Jesus. Meyer. Perhaps we have here to understand a former declaration of the Saviour Himself, and to compare Mat 11:19. As the Son of the Father, who spoke what He had formerly seen and heard with the Father, the Saviour could with the best right name Himself , and perhaps it is the recollection of similar declarations which has given John occasion to designate Him decidedly as the . That here only a of form occurs (Neander, Twesten, Meyer), has no proof. It was certainly not unworthy of the Saviour to cite His own formerly-uttered word as that of the Incarnate Wisdom of God, and if He did this we cannot then assume that He understood by the prophets and apostles any one else than those of the New Covenant now soon to appear in His place, and by whose rejection the measure of wickedness should be fulfilled, and the murder of the prophets reach its culmination. The colors in which here the fate of His witnesses is depicted are probably all taken from their subsequent life. Even crucifixion is in Matthew not mentioned without ground, if the familiar tradition contains truth that Peter suffered the martyrs death in this form, not, it is true, at the hands of the Jews, but yet after he had been condemned by the Jews and delivered to the heathen world. Persecute, , so that it was no longer granted to them to remain quiet in the land. Comp., e.g., Act 13:50.

Luk 11:50. The blood of all the prophetsSee Lange on the parallel in Matthew. The view of Hug, Sepp, and others, that the Saviour here predicted the murder of Zacharias, the son of Baruch, shortly before the destruction of the temple (comp. Josephus, De Bell. Jud. iv 5, 4,) belongs already to the history of exegesis. We too cannot see anything else in it than that the Saviour has in mind 2Ch 24:21, and in this way brings together the murder of the prophets from the first to the last book of the Old Testament canon. He mentions therefore the ancient, as yet unatoned-for blood-guiltiness, which soon, augmented by new, will reach its fearful culmination. As respects finally the well-known difficulty that Zacharias was not the son of Barachias, but of Jehoiada, we prefer on the whole the view (Ebrard, pp. 5, 6,) that Zacharias according to the Old Testament also was a grandson of Jehoiada, and that the Saviour here correctly states Barachias, who is not mentioned in the Old Testament, as his father. Respecting this whole passage the Essay of Mller deserves to be compared, Stud. u. Krit., 1841, 3.

Luk 11:51. Yea, I say unto you.It belongs to the fearful earnestness of the Divine retributive righteousness, that when a generation concurs in heart with the wickedness of an earlier generation, it receives, in the final retribution of the accumulated guilt, as well the punishment for its own, as also for the former sins which it had inwardly made its own.

Luk 11:52. Woe unto you, lawyers!Comp. Mat 23:14. Here is said definitely to the what had there been said to the scribes and Pharisees in general. The position of this saying in Luke, after the fearful denunciation of the previous verse, breaks more or less the climax of the discourse, and may perhaps with other things serve as a proof that he on this occasion has inserted single sayings which were actually not uttered till afterwards. By the key of knowledge we can, as to the rest, understand nothing else than the way of the knowledge of Divine truth which had been revealed and manifested in Christ. By their hierarchical influence upon the people they barred them from access thereto, and by their disposition towards the Saviour, they closed the access to it against themselves.

Luk 11:53. And when He had gone out from thence.See the note on the text. It may be plainly noticed that either anger or conscience made immediate answer impossible to the host and the scribes. In silence therefore did they permit the Saviour to depart from the prandium, but remained together in order to consult what attempts were now further to be made. They soon seek Him again, in order to interrogate Him about all manner of things (), apparently trifling sophistical questions which Luke does not even account worthy the honor of mention. In case of necessity they are even ready to suffer even new castigations, by the answer which the Saviour certainly is not to be supposed to have forborne giving them, if only they could at last succeed in drawing something from Him which should in some way give them the right of denouncing Him either before the secular or before the spiritual authorities.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The holy anger of the Saviour at the breakfast of the Pharisee (Mar 3:5, comp. Eph 4:26), far from being below His dignity, or standing at all in conflict with His character, is on the other hand a striking revelation of His heavenly greatness. It is well known that He towards all that had deeply fallen was affectionate and forbearing, and only towards hypocrites was inexorably severe. The cause of this lies in His character as King of truth, with which no sin stands in so direct opposition as hypocrisy, because it vaunts itself of the guise of a virtue, of the essence of which it is entirely destitute. [So far have we, in our mawkish theories of universal good-nature, sunk below the understanding of this divine severity of our Lord against unworthy teachers of religion, that I have actually seen the declaration attributed to a leading religious journal, that no man who respects religion will speak ill of a clergyman. Such an impudent identifying of religion with its teachers is hardly credible. How does it consist with the tremendous rebukes of our passage, directed against clergymen?C. C. S.]

2. Pharisaism, far from being a merely accidental form of the Judaism of that time, is on the other hand the natural revelation of the sinful condition of the heart when men will not give up the hope of becoming righteous before God by their virtue and merits. They are proud of that which they imagine themselves to possess, and continually inclined to assume the guise of that which they well know they do not possess. The enmity of the flesh towards the immutable declarations and contents of the law (Rom 8:7), they seek to conceal behind respect for outward forms, and in each case they make a compromise with themselves, in order to conceal the transgression of the great commandment by exact fulfilment of the less. But this whole web of self-deceit is penetrated by the sun-like glance of the King of truth, and whoever, like the scribe, Luk 11:45, takes part with the cause of unrighteousness, receives his righteous proportion of the sharp chastisement.

3. When the Saviour combats the temptations of the Pharisaical hierarchy, it is by no means His intention entirely to forbid all distinctions of offices of honor in His kingdom. The same one who wills not that one of His people should be called Rabbi, has placed some as apostles, &c. Eph 4:11. But this He censures, that the office is desired for the titles sake, instead of the title for the offices sake; that men take honor one of another instead of seeking the honor which is of God alone, Joh 5:44. How sadly is the Catholic Church, following the Pharisees, gone astray both as to the letter and the spirit of this word of the Lord!

4. Men judge the heart according to the deed; the Saviour judges the deed according to the heart. Therefore He adduces the building of the sepulchres of the prophets, that in and of itself might be permitted and laudable, as a new ground of accusation, inasmuch as He discovers the same temper of mind in the buriers of the dead, as had once dwelt in the murderers. What they undertake against earlier and later messengers of God, is to Him so far from being surprising and unexpected that He, as the personal Wisdom of God, has already seen it beforehand and predicted it, and yet He has not permitted Himself to be held back by this mournful prospect an instant from His uninterrupted labor of love.
5. That the judgment of the Lord, severe as it was, was not at all too hard, appears at once from this fact alone, that the Pharisees have not the most distant thought of humbling themselves under the rod of this word, but only forge new attacks, and therefore fall out of one sin into another and yet worse sin.
6. There is one wisdom which shuts up the kingdom of God from ones self and others, and another which shows and helps to find the entrance. The former is revealed in the Pharisees and scribes, the latter in the Saviour. The appellation is one of those points of contact which occur in so manifold ways between the Synoptical and the Johannean Christology. Comp. also Pro 8:23. An Ebionitic or Socinianistic Christ could not possibly have spoken in such a way.

7. Inasmuch as the Saviour takes the two examples of unrighteously-shed blood from the first and last book of the Old Testament canon, He gives testimony for the Scriptures of the Old Testament as being a whole.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The Saviours pleasure at table embittered by the malice of man. Pro 17:1. The free Humanity of the Saviour in contrast with the restrictions of a dry Legalism.The severity of love.Outward purifying without inward purity.The mournful opposition between seeming and being, in the religious sphere: 1. The seeming an anxious copy of the being; 2. the being, the mournful contrast of the seeming.The compromise between conscientiousness and the lust of sin.Beneficence not seldom a cloak for the exercise of gross sins.Faithfulness in much and little. There are men who are, 1. Neither the one nor the other; 2. who are conscientious in little and not in much; 3. conscientious in much and on the contrary neglectful in little; 4. who unite both qualities.The Saviour Himself a noble type of faithfulness as well in the highest as in the lowest duty in His calling.The striving after vain honor a genuinely Pharisaic vice.How little do men often conjecture how it is with our hearts!The principle of solidarity.Whoever perpetuates the mention of damnable deeds which might better fall into forget-fulness, renders thereby a testimony against himself.No rejection of the word of God which had not been already predicted.The blood-stream in Israels history, the length, the breadth, the depth, the height.The wisdom of God over against the folly of man. Luk 11:49. Comp. Luk 11:40.The blood-guiltiness of Israel: 1. An ancient guilt; 2. an accumulated guilt; 3. a righteously visited guilt.This whole discourse a proof of the truth of the prophetical word: The Lord is patient, yet of great might, Nah 1:3.Hostility against the truth even where it is clearly recognized.

Veritas odium parit, Act 9:5 b.

Starke:Osiander:It is not a sin to eat and converse with people of another religion, if only we do nothing that is contrary to our profession.Majus:We should give offence to no one, but if he will without it take offence, he does it on his own responsibility.Often do men make side-work the main work and the reverse.Bibl. Wirt.:To please men, one must not conceal the truth, but, when time and place require, confess it, without regard to private gain or loss.Quesnel:Sometimes to address the sinner severely is very necessary in order that he be roused and brought to the knowledge of sin.Brentius:Without faith it is impossible to please God, let one give as many alms as he will.Hypocrisy and avarice, where they coexist, are almost incurable.Everything in its due order and measure.Quesnel: To be first or chief is not pride, but to strive after it is a sign of haughtiness.The discovery of hypocrisy a hard work.Canstein:The evil conscience accuses itself when sin and vices are only rebuked in general terms.It is the greatest hypocrisy to wish to honor departed teachers with monuments, but persecute living ones, Act 7:52.Anton:Evangelical preachers are appointed for this that they suffer tribulationwhy do we wonder at that?The Lord regards and inquires after His servants blood, Psa 9:12.Canstein:From one sin into another, from hypocrisy to murder of prophets.Hedinger:It is one thing to think we understand the Scriptures, another thing to be certain of it.Though children of the world are otherwise at variance, yet they join together when Christs truth is to be opposed.The longer, the worse, they mislead and are misled. Isa 26:10.

Heubner:If there is a heavenly nobility, this has another character than the earthly.How dangerous the position of the teacher of religion is!The easy conscience is none.The human heart may be a temple and a grave, the best and the worst may conceal itself therein.There is for every man a measure of sin, he cannot stand half-way, comp. Rev 22:11.There is a degree of corruption when man cannot escape destruction, but we can never determine that in the concrete.Rieger:A sermon upon the imputation of others sins in his Herzens-Postille, p. 91. Comp. Plutarchus, De sera numinis vindicta, ed. Reichii, viii. p. 213217.Saurin:Les grands et les petits devoirs dans la Religion, Sermon sur Math. Luk 23:23 (parallel to Luk 11:42), tom. 10.A Sermon by Arndt upon Jesus denunciation of woe in the temple, Matthew 23, in his sermons on the Life of Jesus, iv., deserves also to be compared here.

Footnotes:

[10][Luk 11:43.. Those to which they were accustomed, from the reverence of the people.C. C. S.]

[11]Luk 11:44.The Rec. has here , ; in all probability taken from the similar passage in Matthew. [Om., Tischendorf, Tregelles, Meyer, Bleek, Alford with B., C., L., Cod. Sin.C. C. S.]

[12]Luk 11:48.The following words of the Rec.: , are wanting in B., L., [Cod. Sin.,] Copt., Cantabrig., and other authorities, and are therefore bracketed by Lachmann, and rejected by Griesbach, Tischendorf, [Meyer, Tregelles, Alford. But Bleek vindicates their genuineness and necessity.C. C. S.] It is supposed with reason that they contain an interpolated supplement, as can stand very well alone.

[13]Luk 11:53.The reading , approved by Tischendorf, [Meyer, Tregelles,] on the authority of B., C., L., [Cod. Sin.,] has internal probability. The Recepta varies, and it is much easier to assume that this complot took place after the Saviours departure than in His presence.

[14]Luk 11:54.The additional words of the Recepta, , are in all probability spurious. See Meyer, ad locum. [The text, as Van Oosterzee accepts it, is Tischendorfs. Supported by B., L., Cod. Sin.C. C. S.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

(37) And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him. And he went in, and sat down to meat. (38) And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. (39) And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. (40) Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without, make that which is within also? (41) But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.

We had an account of Jesus eating with a Pharisee, Luk 7:36 , which see. And here is the relation of another. Our Lord took all occasions to manifest the object for which he came on earth. And certainly we have abundant reason to bless our gracious Lord for this condescension; for this dinner party, as well as the former visit to the Pharisee’s house, afford some very sweet and profitable instructions. Our Lord’s shewing in what real uncleanness consists, is a rich sermon taught us at this Pharisee’s table.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

37 And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat.

Ver. 37. Sat down to meat ] And yet, at their own tables, he sets the Pharisees forth in their colours, and entertaineth them with as many menaces as they do him with messes of meat.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

37 54. ] DISCOURSE AGAINST THE PHARISEES. There can be no antecedent improbability in the supposition that our Lord spoke on various occasions, and with various incidental references, the component parts of that great anti-pharisaic discourse contained in Mat 23 . That was spoken in the temple, during the last week of His ministry; it formed the solemn close of His public teaching , and at the end of it He departed out of the temple to return no more. I do not think it possible to suppose any part of that discourse in Matthew to be related otherwise than in its true place; all probability is against such an idea, and so is the character of the reports of discourses in that Gospel, in general so strictly coherent and exact. There is then but one supposition left, unless we suppose Luke to have put together at random a number of fragments, and to have inserted them here, creating an occasion for them (for it amounts to this), which is equally inconceivable. And that is, that our Lord spoke at this meal , the occasion being the wonder of the Pharisee at His not washing before sitting down to meat, parts of that discourse , with which He afterwards solemnly closed His public ministry. See throughout, notes on Mat 23 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

37. ] , the morning meal.

. , i.e. without any delay; as soon as He had entered, He sat down.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Luk 11:37-54 . In the house of a Pharisee; criticism of the religion of Pharisees and scribes (Mat 23 ). This section contains a selection of the hard sayings of Jesus on the “righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,” given with much greater fulness in Mt.’s great antipharisaic discourse, the severity of the attack being further mitigated by the words being thrown into the form of table talk. This is the second time Jesus appears as a guest in a Pharisee’s house in this gospel, speaking His mind with all due freedom but without breach of the courtesies of life. The effect and probable aim of these representations is to show that if it ultimately came to an open rupture between Jesus and the Pharisees it was their fault, not His.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Luk 11:37 . , while He was speaking, as if it had been . . . goes most naturally with the present infinitive, but Lk., who uses with infinitive much more frequently than any other N.T. writer, has with the aorist nine times. Vide Burton (M. and T., 109), who remarks in reference to such cases: “The preposition does not seem necessarily to denote exact coincidence (of time), but in no case expresses antecedence. In 1Co 11:21 and Heb 3:12 the action of the infinitive cannot be antecedent to that of the principal verb.” : the meal was breakfast rather than dinner.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 11:37-41

37Now when He had spoken, a Pharisee asked Him to have lunch with him; and He went in, and reclined at the table. 38When the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that He had not first ceremonially washed before the meal. 39But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness. 40You foolish ones, did not He who made the outside make the inside also? 41But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you.”

Luk 11:37 “a Pharisee asked” Remember this context deals with the Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus. This account (cf. Luk 11:37-41) illustrates their spiritual blindness to the major truths and nit-picking legalism based on Talmudic regulations (human traditions, cf. Isa 29:13). See SPECIAL TOPIC: PHARISEES at Luk 5:17.

“lunch” The terms ariston and deipnon distinguish between a meal about noon (or earlier, cf. Mat 22:4; Joh 21:12; Joh 21:15) and a larger meal about 4 p.m. (cf. Luk 14:12). This first term is used here for an early meal in the mid-morning.

Luk 11:38 “When the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that He had not first ceremonially washed before the meal” Apparently Jesus, on purpose, left out this expected rabbinical ceremonial procedure in order to bring the Pharisee into dialogue (this parallels Jesus’ actions on the Sabbath).

The word wash is baptiz, where it means to ceremonially purify by washing. Modern interpreters must be careful of using etymology to dogmatically define Greek words and then insert their technical definition (dying by means of immersion) into every place that word is used. This context is not referring to immersion, but the Jewish ritual of pouring a certain amount (two hen eggs) of water over the elbow until it drips off the fingers and then again over the fingers until it drips off the elbow.

There is a good article in Robert B. Girdlestone’s Synonyms of the Old Testament, pp. 152-157 on the Hebrew thaval and the Greek baptiz.

Luk 11:39 “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter” Jesus wanted to discuss the Pharisees’ orientation of minute details (Talmud) as a sign of being spiritual. The heart is the key to all religious acts. God knows the heart (cf. 1Sa 2:7; 1Sa 16:7; 1Ki 8:39; 1Ch 28:9; 2Ch 6:30; Psa 7:9; Psa 44:21; Pro 15:11; Pro 21:2; Jer 11:20; Jer 17:9-10; Jer 20:12; Luk 16:15; Act 1:24; Act 15:8; Rom 8:27).

Luk 11:40 This question expects a “yes” answer.

“You foolish ones” See Special Topic following.

SPECIAL TOPIC: TERMS FOR FOOLISH PEOPLE

Luk 11:41

NASB”charity”

NKJV, NRSV,

NJB”alms”

TEV

This verse seems to imply that if the inside of the cup is loving and obedient, then it will show in outward manifestations of love to the poor and needy, not legalisms and elitisms (cf. Luk 11:42; Mic 6:8). See Special Topic below.

SPECIAL TOPIC: ALMSGIVING

“then all things are clean for you” This was a radical statement for those brought up under kosher rules (cf. Leviticus 11). However, Jesus modified the OT requirement (cf. Mar 7:1-23), thereby showing He is Lord of Scripture (i.e., its only true interpreter, cf. Mat 5:17-48). This truth is used as an illustration for Peter in Act 10:9-16. Paul followed this understanding of ceremonial defilement (cf. Rom 14:14; Rom 14:20; 1Co 10:25-26; 1Ti 4:4; Tit 1:15).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

as He spake = literal in (Greek. en. App-104.) His speaking.

besought = asked. App-134.

to dine = that he would dine,

dine = take breakfast. Greek. aristao, not deipneo. The morning meal after returning from the synagogue. Occurs (with the noun) only here; Luk 14:12. Mat 22:4. Joh 21:12, Joh 21:15.

with = beside. Greek para. App-104.

sat down to meat = reclined Himself.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

37-54.] DISCOURSE AGAINST THE PHARISEES. There can be no antecedent improbability in the supposition that our Lord spoke on various occasions, and with various incidental references, the component parts of that great anti-pharisaic discourse contained in Matthew 23. That was spoken in the temple, during the last week of His ministry; it formed the solemn close of His public teaching,-and at the end of it He departed out of the temple to return no more. I do not think it possible to suppose any part of that discourse in Matthew to be related otherwise than in its true place; all probability is against such an idea,-and so is the character of the reports of discourses in that Gospel, in general so strictly coherent and exact. There is then but one supposition left, unless we suppose Luke to have put together at random a number of fragments, and to have inserted them here, creating an occasion for them (for it amounts to this), which is equally inconceivable. And that is, that our Lord spoke at this meal, the occasion being the wonder of the Pharisee at His not washing before sitting down to meat, parts of that discourse, with which He afterwards solemnly closed His public ministry. See throughout, notes on Matthew 23.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Luk 11:37. , having entered in, He lay [sat] down to meat) forthwith, without having washed (Luk 11:38) before sitting down to table. Perhaps He was wearied [with the crowds, Luk 11:29].

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Luk 11:37-54

8. CONDEMNATION OF PHARISAISM

Luk 11:37-54

37, 38 Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him-A Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him. This Pharisee was more friendly than many of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a religious sect among the Jews who were very particular about the ceremonies of the law; in fact, they had added many of their traditions to the law; they were as careful to observe their traditions as they were to observe the law. This Phari-see was not a disciple of Jesus. Jesus accepted the invitation. The original shows that it was an early meal, perhaps “breakfast.” It was less formal than a dinner. Who the Pharisee was, or why he asked Jesus, we are not informed; some think that he invited him to criticize his teachings and his life.

And when the Pharisee saw it,-Jesus accepted the invitation and went into the house and dined with the Pharisee. It was the Jewish custom to dip the hands in water before eating and often between courses for ceremonial purification. In Galilee the Pharisees and scribes had criticized Jesus severely and often because he ate with unwashed hands. (Mat 15:1-20; Mar 7:1-23.) On this occasion Jesus had reclined at the breakfast without this ceremonial dipping in water his hands. This neglect of Jesus to follow the custom of the Pharisees caused them to wonder. It became an occasion for Jesus to teach them a lesson. Perhaps this Pharisee was horrified, not that the hands of his guest were unclean, but that he had not conformed to the Pharisaic ceremony of washing before the meal.

39 And the Lord said unto him,-Though Jesus was a guest in the house and at the table of this Pharisee, yet he did not hesitate to condemn the tradition which had been added to the law, and which stood in the way of this Pharisee accepting the truth. Jesus charged the Pharisees with making the outside clean, but neglecting the inside. He did not object to cleansing the outside, but his objection was the cleansing of the outside and leaving the inside unclean; the Pharisees would substitute the outside cleansing for the inward cleansing; this Jesus severely condemned. Jesus used the common illustration of “the cup and of the platter” because these were on the table while they were eating. It was a severe charge to say that they were “full of extortion and wickedness.” The Pharisees kept the external regulations, but their hearts were full of plunder and wickedness. The psalmist had said “Thou desirest truth in the inward parts.” (Psa 51:6.) A cleansed body does not make a pure heart any more than fine clothes make a noble character.

40, 41 Ye foolish ones, did not he that made-God had made the outside and the inward part also; he required cleanliness of both parts. They are called “foolish ones” because they put the emphasis on the wrong thing; at other times Jesus called them hypocrites. The Pharisees gave alms and thought that they were acceptable to God because of their mere giving of alms. They gave alms of what they had and then claimed that all things that they had were clean because they had given alms of it. It mattered not how they had obtained their possession, they acted as though their fraudulent gains were sanctified because they gave a part of them to Jehovah. They thought that they could use lawfully and enjoy all things of which they gave alms. (Luk 19:8-9; Rom 14:14; 1Ti 4:4-5; Tit 1:15.)

42 But woe unto you Pharisees!-A curse is pronounced upon the Pharisees; Jesus was not talking “about” the Pharisees, but he was talking “to” them. The reason assigned is that they carefully “tithe mint and rue and every herb,” and fail to appreciate the full significance of this. To “tithe” meant to take a tenth of anything and give it to Jehovah. “Mint” was a garden plant like our “spearmint”; “rue” was a shrubbery plant about two feet high and was grown in their gardens; “herb” was a general term to include similar plants. Mat 23:23 has “anise” and “cummin.” These were garden plants used principally for flavoring purposes. They were careful to tithe these things, but neglected the important things of “justice and the love of God.” Mathew adds “faith.” It was right for them to tithe these things, but wrong for them to neglect the important things. These things ye ought to do, said Jesus, but you ought not to have left undone “the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith.” (Mat 23:23.)

43 Woe unto you Pharisees!-This “woe” is pronounced upon these Pharisees because they loved to occupy the “chief” or “first” seats in the synagogue. The chief seats were elevated in a semicircle at one end of the synagogue and facing the congregation. Sometimes these seats were sold to those who were able to pay the best price for them. Mat 23:6 has also the chief place at feasts, given by Luke (Luke 14:20:46) as a mark characteristic of the Pharisees. The Pharisees loved these positions of honor; they also loved reverential salutations, titles of honor, and praise of men. They liked to receive the plaudits of men in the market places. In all these places they appeared to be very pious and wanted praises for their pretended loyalty to the law.

44 Woe unto you!-This condemnation is pronounced upon them by Jesus for their hypocrisy. Matthew includes the scribes and other hypocrites with the Pharisees. “Hypocrites” were like stage actors who put on masks and assumed characters that did not belong to them; they were base pretenders. They were like graves or tombs that are hidden from view by age or the growth of grass or weeds and men passing over them are defiled. So people were spiritually defiled by these hypocrites, whose pretended righteousness hid from view their depraved character. These hidden graves would give ceremonial defilement for seven days. (Num 19:16.)

45 And one of the lawyers answering saith-The “lawyers” were generally Pharisees; they were oftentimes the same as the “scribes.” This lawyer felt the reproach that Jesus had given to the Pharisees and so informed him. He felt that what Jesus had said was an insult to the lawyers or to his class. They were interpreters of the law, and were not lawyers in our modern use of that word. He was shrewd enough to see the force of what Jesus had said and felt that the denunciations applied to the lawyers as well as to the Pharisees, he felt that his dignity had been insulted as well as that of the Pharisees.

46 And he said, Woe unto you lawyers also!-The “lawyers,” one of whom now rebuked Jesus, justly merited the condemnation, and Jesus pronounced three woes upon this class. Jesus showed them to be hypocrites, for they by their interpretations and traditions placed heavy burdens upon the people, but they did not get under the load and help bear them; they would not even touch the burden with their fingers. While they made the law fearfully burdensome to the people they touched not those burdens themselves with one of their fingers; but, on the contrary, they exempted themselves by their interpretations entirely from those burdensome constructions which they imposed upon the people. To make law bear heavily on the people, but light as air upon the lawyers and Pharisees, was the uttermost moral abomination.

47 Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets,- Sepulchres among the Jews were often caves, or were hewn out in rocks on the sides of hills and the entrance decorated with ornaments. (Gen 23:9; Isa 22:16.) Some interpret this speech of Jesus as being severe irony. They now pretend greatly to honor the prophets, but their fathers had killed the prophets, and they were walking in the footsteps of their fathers; they did not condemn their fathers for killing the prophets, but went to great trouble and expense to adorn heir graves. This sounds very much like much of our modern hypocrisy, both as individuals and as nations.

48 So ye are witnesses and consent-The generation to which Jesus was talking became guilty of the sins of their fathers by consenting or endorsing the crimes which they did in killing the prophets. Jesus knew that these Pharisees and lawyers were getting ready to destroy him. Their fathers killed the prophets, and now they were building tombs of costly stones, and were adding endless burdens by their traditions. Their fathers had disobeyed the prophets and had destroyed them; the present generation was concealing them under their whitewash of tradition, so that men could not recognize them nor their teaching. In this way they were witnesses and consenting unto the works of their fathers. It is a high crime against God to persecute and destroy God’s prophets of the present generation, but destroy those of a former generation.

49-51 Therefore also said the wisdom of God,-“The wisdom of God” as used here does not refer to any book of the Old Testament; it has reference to Jesus as Paul says in 1Co 1:30. Possibly it may mean that God in his wisdom said what Jesus now states hence there is no reference to a previous revealed “saying.” This wisdom of God now announced that God would send his prophets and apostles to them and that they would persecute and kill them. The generation to which Jesus was speaking was no better than the generation that killed the prophets of God; the present generation was seeking to do even a greater crime than their fathers had done; hence, the condemnation that fell upon their fathers would come with greater force upon them. The sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children (Exo 20:5), especially of that generation which sanctioned the sins of the past, and even went beyond them.

from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah,-Abel, the second son of Adam, was the righteous martyr, and the first recorded in the Bible, and Zachariah, the son of Jehoiada, is the last one recorded, according to the Jewish arrangement of the Old Testament. (2Ch 24:20-22.) His last words were: “Jehovah look upon it, and require it.” However there is some difficulty in determining definitely who this Zachariah was. Many of God’s prophets between Abel and Zachariah had been slain. Some think that this Zachariah was the son of Barachiah; however the usual explanation is that it has reference to Zachariah, the son of Jehoiada, the priest who was slain in the court of the temple. Mat 23:35 gives Zachariah as the son of Barachiah. Some think that in some way “Barachiah” as used by Matthew should be “Jehoiada” , they think these names have been interchanged. Chronologically the murder of Uriah by Jehoiakim was later (Jer 26:23), but this climax is from Genesis to Second Chronicles. Zachariah was slain between the altar and the sanctuary; that is, between the brazen altar in the court and the temple. The condemnation should be cumulative, bringing the blood or the guilt for shedding the blood of all of the prophets upon this generation.

52 Woe unto you lawyers!-This is the third woe pronounced upon the lawyers. This woe is pronounced upon them because they had taken away “the key of knowledge.” Spiritual wisdom is represented as a treasure in a room or house, on which were lock and key; the lawyers had locked the door, and either carried, that is, “kept” the key, or it may mean, they had taken it away. In either case they were responsible as teachers of the law for the ignorance of the people. They had not entered in, neither had they permitted others to enter in. Jesus was revealing the will of God unto the people; these lawyers had refused to accept this teaching and were hindering the people from accepting it.

53, 54 And when he was come out from thence,-The maliciousness of the scribes and Pharisees is clearly and strongly described here. The original Greek may mean that they terribly pressed him, enraged, and plied him with questions concerning more things, setting a trap for him, to catch (or “hunt artfully”) something from his mouth. So soon as Jesus went out from the Pharisee’s house (verse 37) these scribes and Pharisees were ready to spend all of their fury upon him. Jesus had in no uncertain terms very severely rebuked their hypocrisy; they were enraged against him and now sought to take some word and pervert it into some accusation against Jesus. What became of the breakfast that Jesus went in to eat, we know not, but the rage of both Pharisees and lawyers, together with the scribes, knew no bounds. Jesus had pronounced three woes upon the Pharisees and three upon the lawyers. They were “laying wait for him”; this vivid picture of the anger of these Pharisees and lawyers which Luke draws presents them as treating Jesus as if he were a beast of prey.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Searching Table-Talks — Luk 11:37-54

And as He spake, a certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with him: and He went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that He had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not He that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto Him, Master, thus saying Thou reproachest us also. And He said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. Therefore also said the Wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. And as He said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge Him vehemently, and to provoke Him to speak of many things: laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him- Luk 11:37-54.

We have noticed before in our attempt to expound this Gospel that Luke frequently tells of the Saviours being invited out to dinner and his participation at the table with various groups of people. We have mentioned that there is no place nor circumstance which draws a man out and shows what he really is more than the dinner-table, when surrounded either by friends with whom he may have fellowship, or in the midst of enemies who are ready to find fault with him. A great part of the Gospel of Luke is made up of the table talk of our Lord. We have already considered some instances, and here we have another. On every such occasion His words are most faithful. Our Lord Jesus was always honest with people; He never flattered them; He never pretended to be what He was not; He never endorsed anything which was wrong; nevertheless He was never rude nor offensive, but faithful and true in all circumstances.

Here we read that a certain Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him, and He went in, and sat down to meat. There were other Pharisees present, and the host noticed that when Jesus was ready to recline at the table He did not go through a ceremony that was customary among them-He did not baptize before eating. This did not refer simply to the washing of the hands but to an elaborate cleansing in order that one might be fit to partake of the meal. This was of a religious nature, and they thought when this ceremony was finished they were clean before God. So the Pharisees marveled that Jesus had not baptized before eating. The Lord said unto them, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not He that made that which is without make that which is within also? In these words our Lord Jesus Christ insisted that though these religious zealots laid great stress upon the externals of piety, they neglected the internal realities that should have meant so much more to them. Many professed Christians make the same mistake today. They lay far more stress on outward ceremonies than on the inward life. There are those, for instance, who imagine that the ordinance of baptism cleanses them from sin, and that they are regenerated thereby.

The Lord saw into the very hearts of men, and He told them it was not enough to observe legal ordinances. If He were here today He would rebuke, just as strongly as He rebuked these Pharisees, those who imagine that being- a Christian depends on church-membership and ritual-services, rather than the cleansing of the soul before God. Our Lord told these Pharisees that they were very careful about cleaning the outside of the cup, but they did not clean the inside. They did not seem to understand that He who made the outside made also the inside. They cleansed the body with water, but the heart was full of ravening and wickedness. What God wants above everything else is a clean heart.

Our Lord was not ignoring the importance of the cleansing of the body, but that alone is not enough: the heart must be purified by faith. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. That is, when the love of God fills the heart so that one will be concerned about the needs of others, then only will these outward observances have any real value. How we need to take that to heart today! We receive blessing after blessing from God, and how seldom do we remember that we are to communicate to others of the good things which God has given to us. You can test the measure of a mans spirituality, not by a pious look on his face, nor by his words, but very largely by his use of the means which God has entrusted to him. He who is constantly gathering up for himself, in utter indifference to the poor and needy about him, gives evidence that the love of God does not dwell in him.

Our Lord pronounced three woes upon the Pharisees. First because of the way they emphasized tithing of minor things while neglecting the more important things of life: But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. They might go into the garden or out on the hillside or down by the seaside and gather these herbs. Then they always put away one-tenth of them for God, and thought when they had done this, when they had tithed these little things, that God must be pleased wtih them. But Jesus pointed out that while they were careful about tithing, there were other great matters of justice and the love of God which should have come first. It was perfectly right to apply the rule of tithing even to the smallest things, even though of little value, but the most important thing was a godly-walk-to walk in justice and righteousness before God and man, and to manifest the love of God in the life. The trouble with many religionists is that they have never known the reality of the new birth. Jesus said to Nicodemus, Ye must be born again, and, Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Outward observances will never make up for this lack of inner life.

The second woe was pronounced because of the devotion of the Pharisees to the uppermost seats in the synagogue: Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. They were fond of outward show. They enjoyed having people look up to them when they entered the synagogue, which answers to the church today. Some men like the head usher to approach them and say, Come here; we have a special seat for you. And everybody says, He must be somebody; who is he? Oh, someone explains, he is Dr. So-and-So, one of the great religious leaders. And this dignitary sits complacently enjoying the admiration of the company while pretending to worship God. In reality he is but seeking satisfaction from the recognition given him. Such conduct is abhorrent to God who knoweth the proud afar off.

The third woe dealt with hidden uncleanness: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. We need to understand something- of what was written in the Law in order to get the full force of these words. According to the Law of Moses, an Israelite was defiled if he walked over a grave or came in contact with the bones of a dead body. He had to go through a process of cleansing before he could again take his place with the worshippers in the house of the Lord. These Pharisees, who should have been examples of holiness, who should have been the ones to whom others might come for help and guidance, were corrupt themselves and misleading, by their unhallowed influence and hypocritical lives, those who trusted them. They were utterly false. To associate with them was like coming in contact with dead mens bones and becoming defiled, though they did not realize it. These were the scorching words of our Lord, and the worst of the matter was that they were absolutely true and every Pharisee at that table realized that they were true, though they may have gnashed their teeth with indignation when they heard Jesus say these things.

There were lawyers present, that is, men whose business it was to expound the law of Moses, men who had given themselves to years of study in the sacred Scriptures. When questions came up as to the interpretation of passages, these men were supposed to be able to give the final word. One of them, evidently stirred to the depths of his soul, said, Master, thus saying Thou insultest us also. The word insultest is a better translation than reproachest: You insult us in talking like this. His own conscience condemned him, for he knew what the Lord had said of the Pharisees was just as true of him and his fellow-lawyers. Jesus did not retract His words for one moment. He was not trying to insult anyone. He was absolutely faithful. He would not cover up their sins; He brought them into the light, that they might be judged in the presence of God.

Jesus pronounced three woes upon the lawyers as He had upon the Pharisees. The first was because they laded men with burdens grievous to be borne, and they themselves touched not the burdens with one of their fingers. These lawyers not only expounded the Law of Moses but they had also added to that Law many human traditions. Jesus said, You have made the Law of God of none effect by your traditions. They could explain to the people all these different commandments and rules and regulations, but Jesus declared that while they made these things clear to other people they themselves did not obey them. They were not genuine but insincere. Jesus emphasized the importance of obedience to God. They urged upon the common people obedience to the law and the traditions they had added to it but they did not obey many of the commandments themselves. In other words, they were saying, Do as I say, but not as I do.

In the second place, the Lord reproved and pronounced a woe upon the lawyers for absolute hypocrisy. They made a great deal of the sacred shrines. Jesus said, Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. Therefore also said the Wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute. This is the only place in the New Testament where the Wisdom of God is personified. In the book of Proverbs we have this personification. In chapter 8 Wisdom warns men of the danger of insincerity and sinful folly. Here in the New Testament the Wisdom of God speaks, telling men of the doom that comes upon those who have not heeded the revelation God has given, though they profess to honor those through whom it came. The Wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation: from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias. Whether this refers to Zechariah, the author of the book which bears his name (who, according to the Jewish Targum, was slain in the sanctuary), or to that earlier Zechariah whose death is recorded in 2Ch 24:20-21, is a moot question. But the important thing to see is that God held unbelieving Israel accountable for all the blood that had been shed because of faithfulness to Him. The same spirit of rejection of the Word and opposition to the messengers of God was seen in that generation. As we know, terrible judgments soon followed.

The third woe is found in Luk 11:52, Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. The key was looked upon as the symbol of knowledge. The doctors of learning in Israel wore a key just as some of our college graduates, for instance, who have specially excelled in Greek, wear the Phi Beta Kappa key. Jesus referred to that when He said to Peter, I give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. To these lawyers He said, as it were, You have the key of knowledge; you are supposed to know, and you are recognized as men familiar with the Scriptures. Why do you not give to others the Scriptures in their simplicity? You have taken them away from the people and are keeping them for yourselves; yet you do not heed them, and the people are left in ignorance. It is a solemn warning against the misuse of the Scriptures. If God has entrusted one with the knowledge of the Word, he is responsible to give out that Word clearly and helpfully so that others may share the blessing.

With these sayings our Lords table talk on this occasion came to a close. As He said these things unto them, the scribes and Pharisees began to question Him, trying to catch something out of His mouth whereby they might accuse Him. They desired to find some evidence showing that His teaching was contrary to the law of Moses; but they had no concern about getting right with God themselves.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Chapter 74

Self-righteousness

I would rather stand before God guilty of any crime than stand before him in the Day of Judgment guilty of self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is mans foolish, ignorant attempt to make himself righteous. It is the hypocritical claim of men and women that they are good, righteous and holy. It is that great noise of religion and piety, by which people try to silence the inward torments of a guilty conscience. Self-righteousness is the religion of fools.

Ye fools! (Luk 11:41) is exactly what our Lord called the Pharisees and Scribes of his day; and that is exactly what I call them today. It takes a little intelligence to be selfish; but it takes total ignorance to be self-righteous! The word our Lord uses for fools here is not the same word used in the Sermon on the Mount (Mat 5:22). This is the word Paul used to describe those who denied the gospel in Corinth (1Co 15:36). It means people without mind or understanding! Truly, all who pretend to be righteous of themselves are totally without mind or understanding!

There is nothing in all the world so contemptible, so obnoxious, so hateful to our God as self-righteousness (Isa 65:2-5). For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? (1Co 4:7). Yet, there is nothing more natural to us!

Our Lord Jesus was invited to have dinner with a Pharisee; and he accepted the invitation. While he was there, the Pharisees, the scribes and the lawyers, those who pretended to be righteous, gave him exactly the background upon which to show the character and folly of self-righteousness. That is the picture set before us in Luk 11:37-54.

Traditions Or The Word

Self-righteousness is always more concerned about the traditions of men than the Word of God. The Pharisee marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner (Luk 11:38). These Pharisees of Christs day not only held the traditions of the elders about hand-washing, but in their superstitious zeal also bathed (washed, baptized) their bodies before eating a meal (Mar 7:3-4). Yes, the law of God required the ceremonial purification to which their tradition pointed; but by adding their traditions to the Word of God, they nullified the commandment of God.

Multitudes today follow this evil example of the Pharisees, setting religious traditions over the Word of God. Throughout the history of Christianity, men have held traditions superior to the scriptures, even as they have pretended to be defending and protecting the scriptures. Churches around the world have man written creeds and confessions, by which they determine what is to be believed and practised, setting traditions above the Word of God. Denominational customs are rigidly followed, while the Book of God is ignored. Historical theology is made the basis of faith, rather than the revelation of God. Church covenants are made the rule by which church members are to be governed, rather than the scriptures. Religious taboos are imposed upon people from one generation to another, taboos nowhere found in holy scripture, by which churches and preachers seek to control the lives of Gods saints. The creed of all Pharisees, the creed of self-righteous religion is touch not, taste not, handle not (Col 2:21).

In the heavenly truthful dignity of his character, our Master purposefully ignored the Pharisees traditions. We ought to follow his example. The sons of God are not to be in bondage to the traditions and customs of men! Those who are made free by Christ are free indeed!

Here is the Son of God, the embodiment of truth and holiness, standing before this Pharisee. Yet, this self-righteous hypocrite despised the Lord of Glory and judged him to be a sinner, because he did not conform to the petty custom of washing his hands at a public dinner!

Outward Or Inward

Self-righteous religionists are always more concerned about the outward form of godliness than heart faith and worship. They make clean the outside of the cup, but the inward is full of ravening and wickedness (Luk 11:39). They live for the approval and applause of men, not for the acceptance of God. Their religion is a religion men can see and measure. All hypocrites are men pleasers. They will make their hands clean, though their hearts are full of wickedness. They look upon the things which are seen. They profess to know God; but in works they deny him (Tit 1:16). They deny that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, that these are the things which defile a man (Mat 15:19-20). They make a great show of godliness, but have no concern for God or man. Their only object is themselves. They have a form of godliness, but deny the power of it. That is to say, though they practise religion and dutifully perform religious duties, they deny the gospel of Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation. They say their prayers, but know nothing of prayer. They go to church, but know nothing of worship. They pay their tithes, but know nothing of giving.

True religion, true godliness does not ignore or despise public worship and the observance of gospel ordinances. True believers delight in those things. But our religion is not an outward show. It is primarily inward and spiritual. It is primarily a heart matter.

Spiritual Ignorance

Self-righteousness is always totally ignorant of all things spiritual. Ye fools! When it comes to spiritual matters, they have neither mind nor understanding.

I do not say they are not smart. They may be brilliant. I do not even say they are not orthodox. They may be thoroughly so. But they do not understand anything about themselves, God, Christ, sin, righteousness, or salvation. They know neither the law of God nor the gospel of God. All they know is religious words, customs, traditions and facts. Being ignorant of their own hearts they vainly imagine they are good. Being ignorant of Gods righteousness they go about to establish their own righteousness (Rom 9:30 to Rom 10:4). The self-righteous religionist foolishly convinces himself that God will look on his outward behaviour and thereby be blinded to his heart!

Fallen man has no righteousness of his own. And he is totally ignorant of Gods righteousness. He is ignorant of Gods character of righteousness, Gods requirement of righteousness, and Gods accomplishment of righteousness in Christ. Being ignorant of both the righteousness of God and his own sinfulness, fallen man ever goes about to establish his own righteousness. Fallen man made an apron of fig leaves, by which he hoped to meet with Gods approval. His firstborn son followed the example and nature he had received from his fallen father. Cain offered God a bloodless sacrifice, which he had produced by the works of his own hands. But God despised it.

No one will ever trust Christ until he sees that he has no righteousness of his own and that it is utterly impossible for him to produce any righteous work acceptable to God. Yet, fallen, ignorant, sinful men and women continue the vain, futile work of trying to establish their own righteousness. They take bricks from the kiln of their corrupt hearts and slime of their defiled hands for mortar, and try to build a tower of Babel that will bring them to heaven. By works of legal obedience, moral reformation, personal sacrifice, self-denial, devotion, sacramentalism, penitence and religious zeal, foolish man hopes to establish righteousness for himself. But when he has done the very best he can do and offers it up to God, giving God his righteousness is like throwing a vile, discarded, loathsome menstruous cloth in the face of the triune God (Isa 64:6)!

God will not have it. God requires perfect obedience. He cannot and will not accept anything less than perfection, both inward and outward (Gal 3:10). Fallen man cannot produce righteousness, because his heart is evil (Mat 15:19). A corrupt fountain cannot bring forth pure water. Everything man does is defiled, because his motives are defiled. No man can make atonement for his sin (Heb 10:11). Even if man could cleanse his heart and begin to do righteousness, he could never be accepted with God on that basis, because he still bears the guilt of sin and must be punished.

The Lord Jesus declares, Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven (Mat 5:20). We must have perfect righteousness, even the righteousness of God that is in Christ Jesus. That righteousness was obtained for chosen sinners by the faith of Jesus Christ, and is bestowed freely upon all who believe on the Son of God (Rom 3:22). It cannot be earned, merited, or gained by the works of men.

Trifles Cherished

Self-righteous religionists are always sticklers for trifles, and neglect that which is indispensable. Self-righteous men and women attempt to make atonement for their sins, mistakes, faults and errors by doing good works that men applaud.

Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone (Luk 11:40-42).

They give alms and feel very good about their great philanthropy. Luk 11:41 is not a commendation, but an accusation. Our Lord is saying, You fools! You wash your cups and platters, fill them by devouring widows houses, and then give alms of such things as you have, and ignorantly imagine that you are holy and clean before God!

They pay tithes (on the gross, not the net!) while ignoring both the justice of God and the love of God. The self-righteous do not understand that God truly is just and he will only deal with men upon the grounds of justice. The self-righteous love themselves and hate both God and their neighbours, while pretending to love them. In religious matters they are scrupulously orthodox and equally malicious! They will argue vehemently for the rules of church order and discipline and ignore the gospel! They will split hairs about polity and pass over the law of the spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus! They will split churches and start new denominations over the singing of psalms or hymns, and never give a thought about brotherly love! After hearing a sermon on Christs getting a Bride from among sinners, they want to discuss where Cain got his bride!

Recognition And Praise

Self-righteousness loves the recognition and praise of men. Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets (Luk 11:43). The hypocrite is religious, but only so far as it will help to honour himself and minister to his vanity. He has no thought of adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour; but he seeks to be adorned by the doctrine. If he holds office in the church, it is that it may add to his dignity. He may seldom be out of his place in the house of prayer, but his god is his belly. He will be very zealous in religion if he can gain the flattery of others.

Someone said, The hypocrite is like a glow-worm; it seems to have both light and heat, but when you touch it, it has neither.

Covering For Corruption

Self-righteousness is always but hypocritical. It is nothing but a covering for inward corruption. Self-righteousness is really a manifestation of self-contempt. The loud noise of self-righteousness is designed to silence the turmoil in a mans guilty soul. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them (Luk 11:44).

We seldom think of the foulness and rottenness inside the graves and tombs when we walk through a cemetery; but those graves and tombs are within, full of dead mens bones and of all uncleanness. A sow that is washed is still only a washed sow. A hypocrite may manage by his white-washing to give no offence to his fellow-man; but God looks on the heart (1Sa 16:7). Be not deceived, God is not mocked; the hidden man of the heart is naked and bare before the eyes of the Lord (Psa 7:9). The hypocrite lives for that which is highly esteemed among men, but that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God (Luk 16:15).

Offended By Christ

Self-righteousness is always offended by Christ. Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also (Luk 11:45). The cross is always an offence to self-righteous men, because Christ is always an offence to them. The self-righteous are offended by everything our Master taught. Everything revealed in the gospel reproaches them (divine sovereignty, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints, faith in a substitute, free justification, imputed righteousness, knowledge by revelation).

Imposed Laws

Self-righteousness always imposes upon others laws and rules that it excuses in itself. And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers (Luk 11:46). Self-righteous work-mongers raise a great ruckus about sabbath keeping, throw people out of church for going to a restaurant on Sunday, or watching a football game on Sunday. Yet, not one of those who pretend to live by Old Testament, Jewish law observes the very things they impose on others. They only pretend to keep the law.

Persecution

Self-righteousness is the mother of persecution. Self-righteous religionists build monuments to dead prophets, while honouring the men who killed them and are themselves persecutors of living prophets.

Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation (Luk 11:47-51).

Hinders Faith

Self-righteousness keeps sinners from entering the kingdom of God. Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered (Luk 11:52). While practising religion, observing religious customs, defending creeds and establishing churches, mission boards, denominations, Bible Colleges and Seminaries, the religious hypocrites of this world take away Christ, the key of knowledge. They refuse to enter the Strait Gate, Christ Jesus. And they stand in the way, blocking the Door, lest others enter in into life everlasting.

Always Deceitful

Self-righteousness is always deceitful, conniving, and underhanded; never open and above board. And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him (Luk 11:53-54).

Once, while preaching near Anchorage, Alaska, I saw a large sign hanging over the entrance to a bar. When I read it, I thought to myself, that ought to be hung over the doorway of every church building in the world. So that both upon entering and leaving, all would be compelled to read it. The sign read, If you wear your halo too tight, you give the rest of us a headache.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

Luk 7:36, Luk 14:1, 1Co 9:19-23

Reciprocal: Pro 23:7 – Eat Mal 3:2 – who may abide Luk 7:34 – eating

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Jesus accepted the invitation to dine with the Pharisee, which was not considered strange since they both were Jews. Went in and sat down to meat, indicates that he did this

without any previous ceremony.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

LET us notice in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ’s readiness, when needful, to go into the company of the unconverted. We read that “a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him.” The man was evidently not one of our Lord’s disciples. Yet we are told that “Jesus went in and sat down to meat.”

The conduct of our Lord on this occasion, as on others, is meant to be an example to all Christians. Christ is our pattern as well as our propitiation. There are evidently times and occasions when the servant of Christ must mix with the ungodly and the children of this world. There may be seasons when it may be a duty to hold social intercourse with them, to accept their invitations, and sit down at their tables. Nothing, of course, must induce the Christian to be a partaker in the sins or frivolous amusements of the world. But he must not be uncourteous. He must not entirely withdraw himself from the society of the unconverted, and become a hermit or an ascetic. He must remember that good may be done in the private room as well as in the pulpit.

One qualification, however, should never be forgotten, when we act upon our Lord’s example in this matter. Let us take heed that we go down into the company of the unconverted in the same spirit in which Christ went. Let us remember His boldness in speaking of the things of God. He was always “about His Father’s business.”-Let us remember His faithfulness in rebuking sin. He spared not even the sins of those that entertained Him, when His attention was publicly called to them. Let us go into company in the same frame of mind, and our souls will take no harm. If we feel that we dare not imitate Christ in the company which we are invited to join, we may be sure that we had better stay at home.

Let us notice, secondly, in this passage, the foolishness which accompanies hypocrisy in religion. We are told that the Pharisee with whom our Lord dined marveled that our Lord “had not first washed before dinner.” He thought, like most of his order, that there was something unholy in not doing it, and that the neglect of it was a sign of moral impurity. Our Lord points out the absurdity of attaching such importance to the mere cleansing of the body, while the cleansing of the heart is overlooked. He reminds His host that God looks at the inward part of us, the hidden man of the heart, far more than at our skins. And He asks the searching question, “Did not He that made that which is without, make that which is within also?” The same God who formed our poor dying bodies, is the God who gave us a heart and soul.

For ever let us bear in mind that the state of our hearts is the principal thing that demands our attention, if we would know what we are in religion. Bodily washings, and fastings, and gestures, and postures, and self-imposed mortifications of the flesh, are all utterly useless if the heart is wrong. External devoutness of conduct, a grave face, and a bowed head, and a solemn countenance, and a loud amen, are all abominable in God’s sight, so long as our hearts are not washed from their wickedness, and renewed by the Holy Ghost. Let this caution never be forgotten.

The idea that men can be devout before they are converted, is a grand delusion of the devil, and one against which we all need to be on our guard. There are two Scriptures which are very weighty on this subject. In one it is written, “Out of the heart are the issues of life.” (Pro 4:23.) In the other it is written, “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh at the heart.” (1Sa 16:7.) There is a question which we should always ask ourselves in drawing near to God, whether in public or private. We should say to ourselves, “Where is my heart?”

Let us notice, thirdly, in this passage, the gross inconsistency which is often exhibited by hypocrites in religion. We read that our Lord says to the Pharisees, “Ye tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God.” They carried to an extreme their zeal to pay tithes for the service of the temple;-and yet they neglected the plainest duties towards God and their neighbors. They were scrupulous to an extreme about small matters in the ceremonial law; and yet they were utterly regardless of the simplest first principles of justice to man and love toward God. In the one direction they were rigidly careful to do even more than was needful. In the other direction they would do nothing at all. In the secondary things of their religion they were downright zealots and enthusiasts. But in the great primary things they were no better than the heathen.

The conduct of the Pharisees in this matter, unhappily, does not stand alone. There have never been wanting religious professors who have exalted the second things of Christianity far above the first, and in their zeal for the second things have finally neglected the first things entirely. There are thousands at the present day who make a great ado about daily services, and keeping Lent, and frequent communion, and turning to the east in churches, and a gorgeous ceremonial, and intoning public prayers,-but never get any further. They know little or nothing of the great practical duties of humility, charity, meekness, spiritual-mindedness, Bible reading, private devotion, and separation from the world. They plunge into every gaiety with greediness. They are to be seen at every worldly assembly and revel, at the race, the opera, the theater, and the ball. They exhibit nothing of the mind of Christ in their daily life. What is all this but walking in the steps of the Pharisees? Well says the wise man, “There is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecc 1:9.) The generation which tithed mint, but passed over “judgment and the love of God,” is not yet extinct.

Let us watch and pray that we may observe a scriptural proportion in our religion. Let us beware of putting the second things out of their place, and so by degrees losing sight of the first entirely. Whatever importance we attach to the ceremonial part of Christianity, let us never forget its great practical duties. The religious teaching which inclines us to pass them over, has something about it which is radically defective.

Let us notice, lastly, the falseness and hollowness which characterize the hypocrite in religion. We read that our Lord compared the Pharisees to “graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.” Even so these boasting teachers of the Jews were inwardly full of corruption and uncleanness, to an extent of which their deluded hearers had no conception.

The picture here drawn is painful and disgusting. Yet the accuracy and truthfulness of it have often been proved by the conduct of hypocrites in every age of the church. What shall we say of the lives of monks and nuns, which were exposed at the time of the Reformation? Thousands of so called “holy” men and women were found to be sunk in every kind of wickedness. What shall we say of the lives of some of the leaders of sects and heresies who have professed a peculiarly pure standard of doctrine? Not infrequently the very men who have promised to others liberty have turned out to be themselves “servants of corruption.” The morbid anatomy of human nature is a loathsome study. Hypocrisy and unclean living have often been found side by side.

Let us leave the whole passage with a settled determination to watch and pray against hypocrisy in religion. Whatever we are as Christians, let us be real, thorough, genuine and sincere. Let us abhor all canting and affectation, and part-acting in the things of God, as that which is utterly loathsome in Christ’s eyes. We may be weak, and erring, and frail, and come far short of our aims and desires. But at any rate, if we profess to believe in Christ, let us be true.

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Notes-

v37.-[A certain Pharisee.] We do not know who this Pharisee was. It seems clear that he was not a disciple of Christ. Yet our Lord accepted his invitation, and dined with him. From this circumstance the conclusion is often drawn by weak believers that it is lawful and desirable to keep up social intercourse with unconverted people. As to the lawfulness there can be no doubt. As to the desirableness and expediency, every one must judge for himself, and consider what he can do, and what he cannot. Those Christians who plead our Lord’s example as an argument for dining with unconverted people, would do well to mark our Lord’s conduct and conversation at the tables of those with whom He dined. Let them copy Him in His conversation as well as in the acceptance of invitations. Unhappily, there are many who will accept the invitations as our Lord accepted, but will not talk as our Lord talked.

v38.-[That he had not first washed.] Let this expression be carefully noted. The Greek word literally translated would be rendered, “that he had not first been baptized” before dinner. It is clear that the washing spoken of cannot be a washing of the whole body, but a partial washing, as of the hands and feet, or a sprinkling of water on the hands, after the manner of Eastern nations. (2Ki 3:11.) The opinion held by some Baptists that the Greek word to “baptize” is never used except in the sense of a total immersion of the body, is one that cannot be reconciled with the expression used in this text.

v39.-[Your inward part.] This of course means your inward man -your heart. It is what Peter calls “the hidden man of the heart.” (1Pe 3:4.)

v40.-[Ye fools.] The literal meaning of the Greek word so translated is, “persons without mind or understanding.” It is the same word that Paul uses. (1Co 15:36.) It is not the word that our Lord forbids to be used in the sermon on the mount. (Mat 5:22.)

[Did not he that made that which is without, &c.] Our Lord’s meaning in this verse appears to be that it is absurd and unreasonable to suppose that God can be pleased with mere external and ceremonial purity, while inward purity and cleansing of the heart are neglected. He who made all things, made the inner man as well as the outward, and requires the heart to be washed from its wickedness, as well as the hands from uncleanness.

v41.-[But rather give alms, &c.] This is a very difficult verse. The variety of interpretations of it shows plainly that it has perplexed the commentators. Some think that the whole verse is ironical, and that our Lord means, “Go on in your practice of giving alms of such things as ye have, and then indeed ye are very holy people! All things are clean upon you!-Give alms and keep up the ceremonial law, and then no doubt ye are the people! None so holy as ye!” This is the opinion of Lightfoot, who thinks that our Lord is quoting the tenets of the Pharisees “in mere scoff and displeasure.” However it does not seem a satisfactory mode of explaining the verse, and is unlike our Lord’s usual mode of speaking. This interpretation may therefore be dismissed at once.

The real difficulty of the verse no doubt lies in the words which we translate “such things as ye have.” Some think that this expression is elliptical, and that it means, “Give alms every one according to his ability.” This is the view of Euthymius, Maldonatus, Cocceius, Hammond, Whitby, Schottgen, and Doddridge.-Others think that the expression means, “Give as alms to the poor those things that ye have,” that is, the things that ye have obtained by avarice and plunder, as Zacchus did.-Others think that the expression means, “All that ye have-all your property.”-Others think that it means, “That which is over and above,-your superfluities,-give them as alms.”-Others think that it means, “Give alms with all your might.”-Others think that it means, “Give alms, which is the only remedy left to you.”

All these interpretations appear very unsatisfactory. None of them meets the grave objection, that, taken in connection with the concluding sentence of the verse, they teach false doctrine. Alms do not make our souls clean, and all our actions pure, no matter how, or in what way, or to what extent we give them. I take leave to suggest another explanation, which seems to me to deserve consideration. The literal meaning of the Greek word is as follows,-“But rather give the things that are in, as alms.”-The simplest sense of this sentence appears to be, “Give first the offering of the inward man. Give your heart, your affections, and your will to God, as the first great alms which you bestow, and then all your other actions, proceeding from a right heart, are an acceptable sacrifice, and a clean offering in the sight of God.-Give the inner man first, and then the gifts and service of the external man will be acceptable.-Give yourselves first to the Lord, and then He will be pleased with your gifts. See that your persons are first accepted, and then your works will be acceptable. To the pure all things are pure.” Let the expression in this sense be compared with Rom 12:1. Psa 51:17. 2Co 8:5.

v42.-[Woe unto you.] Here, as in other places, the stern and severe language of our Lord deserves notice. Gracious and loving as He was, He could rebuke when there was need. Nothing seems so odious in His eyes as hypocrisy.

[Ye tithe mint, &c.] This expression means that the Pharisees pretended to such excessive scrupulosity about giving a tenth of all their possessions to the service of the temple and to the maintenance of the ceremonial law, that they were not content with tithing their corn. They even tithed their garden herbs. Yet all this time they entirely neglected the plain duties of justice to man, and real love to God.

The neglect of distinction between that which is great and that which is small, that which is first and that which is second, that which is essential and that which is non-essential, has been the source of enormous evil in every age of the Church. It is a distinction which the never-dying school of the Pharisees is unable to draw.

v43.-[Ye love the uppermost seats, &c.] Let it be noted, that ambition and the love of precedence are common marks of the formalist and the self-righteous. To exalt themselves under pretence of honouring the Church, and to obtain power under cover of obtaining respect for their own order, has been the practice of Pharisees all over the world and in every age of the Church of Christ.

Our Lord, in this verse, exposes the hollowness of the motives by which His enemies were actuated. Self, and self-aggrandizement, were the true spring of all their conduct.

v44.-[Ye are as graves which appear not.] There is a remarkable difference between the comparison which our Lord draws here and that which He draws in Mat 23:27, where He likens the Pharisees to whitened sepulchres.

In the comparison before us He rebukes the cunning with which they concealed their own inward corruption, so that men were not aware of it.-In the one in Matthew He exposes the false profession which they made outwardly to the eye, in having a beautiful semblance of religion, while there was nothing corresponding in the state of their hearts.-In the case before us He exposes what men did not see in the Pharisees. In the case in Matthew He rather exposes what men did see.-In the one case it was a grave full of corruption, but a grave concealed from the eye. In the other it was a grave equally full of corruption, but outwardly beautiful and white, so as to deceive a beholder as to the nature of its contents.-In the one case there was corruption, but made outwardly beautiful and harmless. In the other there was corruption hidden, concealed, and entirely kept back from the eye.-In both cases the heart was the same. The whitened sepulchre and the sepulchre concealed were both sepulchres full of corruption.

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Luk 11:37. How as he spake. While he had been speaking, i.e., the foregoing. A reference to some other time is barely possible, certainly not natural.

Asketh him. Besought is too strong; it was an ordinary invitation.

To dine. The meal was not the principal repast of the day, but a morning one. Granting that this day began with the healing of the demoniac, and ended in the storm on the way to Gadara, we can see that the house must have been near at hand, and the invitation readily accepted.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. The free conversation of our blessed Saviour, how readily he complies with the Pharisees’ invitation to dine with him. I do not find that, when Christ was invited to any table, that ever he refused to go; if a Pharisee, if a publican invited him, he constantly went, not so much for the pleasure of eating, as for the opportunity of conversing and doing good. Christ feasts us when we feed him: he says of himself, that he came eating and drinking, that is, allowing himself a free, though innocent, conversation with all sorts of persons, that he might gain some.

Observe, 2. The exception which the Pharisee takes at our Saviour’s not washing his hands before dinner. This they made (but without any warrant for it) a religious act; abounding in external washings, but neglecting the inward purgation of their hearts and consciences from sin and uncleanness. Thus Pharisaical hypocrisy puts God off with outward cleansing instead of inward purity; regarding more the outward cleanness of the hand, than the inward purity of the heart.

Observe, 3. Our blessed Saviour does not condemn any external decency and cleanliness in conversation, but his design is to show the vanity of outward purity without inward sanctity, and to convince them of the necessity of cleansing the heart, in order to the purifying and reforming the life. The Pharisee washed his hands clean, but left his soul full of uncleanness; not considering that he that made the soul as well as the body, requires that both should be kept pure, all the impiety of men’s lives proceeding from the impurity of their hearts and natures.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Luk 11:37. And as he spake, a Pharisee besought him to dine with him Our Lord having proved the truth of his mission, against the malicious cavils of his enemies, in the manner above stated, when he had made an end of speaking, one of the Pharisees present invited him to dine with him. It is not said whether he gave him the invitation as a mark of respect for him, or with an insidious design. The severity with which Jesus reproved the superstition of the Pharisees, while he sat at meat with them, and the malice which they discovered, in urging him to say things offensive to the magistrate or to the people, make it probable that the latter rather was the case. Nevertheless, he accepted the invitation, and went along with the Pharisee, and sat down at table without washing, as, it seems, all the other guests had done. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled, &c. Expressed great surprise at our Lords showing such an open contempt of their traditions. And the Lord said, Now ye Pharisees Probably many of them were present at the Pharisees house; make clean the outside of the cup, &c. Ye are at great pains to keep every thing clean that touches your food, lest your bodies should be defiled in eating; but ye are at no pains to keep your minds clean from pollutions that are incomparably worse, the pollutions of rapine, covetousness, and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without, &c. Did not he, who made the body, make the soul also? Wherefore ye are grossly stupid and foolish, not to see, that, if God requires purity of body, because it is his own workmanship, he will much more insist on purity of mind, which is the nobler part of human nature. And therefore, instead of that scrupulousness with respect to meats and washings, which engrosses so much of your attention, you ought to apply yourselves to the duties of justice, mercy, and charity, as an evidence that your hearts are right with God, that you love him better than the world, and prefer the pleasing of him to amassing wealth, or attaining any temporal good. It is justly observed here, by Dr. Macknight, that we are not to imagine alms-giving was particularly mentioned by Christ, in his exhortation to the Pharisees, because it is of greater value and necessity than the other virtues. He recommended it to that sect, because they were generally remarkable for their covetousness and extortion, vices which must be repented of, by making restitution to those who have been injured by them. And when these cannot be known or found, the compensation must be made to the poor, as having the next right; because what is given to them is lent to God; but the Pharisees were of an incorrigibly stubborn disposition, which no instruction, however mild or persuasive, could influence; wherefore our Lord, on this occasion, wisely treated them with a kind and wholesome severity, denouncing most dreadful woes against them for being so zealous in the ceremonial institutions of religion, while they utterly neglected the precepts of morality. Wo unto you That is, miserable are you. In the same manner is the phrase to be understood throughout the chapter; for ye tithe, &c. Ye pay tithes of these things, and pass over judgment and the love of God Ye show such care and exactness in performing ceremonial precepts, that ye do not neglect even the least of them; but the great duties of godliness and righteousness, of the love of God and all mankind, and the duties of truth, justice, mercy, and charity, flowing therefrom, ye utterly neglect, as things of no importance in comparison. Nevertheless, these ought ye to have done The duties of piety and morality ought to have been the principal objects of your care, while, at the same time, the other should not have been left undone. See on Mat 23:23-26.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1 st. To the Pharisees: Luk 11:37-44.

Vers. 37 and 38. The Occasion.

This Pharisee had probably been one of the hearers of the previous discourse; perhaps one of the authors of the accusation raised against Jesus. He had invited Jesus along with a certain number of his own colleagues (Luk 11:45; Luk 11:53), with the most malevolent intention. Thus is explained the tone of Jesus (Luk 11:39 et seq.), which some commentators have pronounced impolite (!). The reading of some Fathers and Vss., He began to doubt (or to murmur, as sometimes means in the LXX.), and to say, is evidently a paraphrase. , the morning meal, as , the principal meal of the day. The meaning of the expression is this: He seated Himself without ceremony, as He was when He entered. The Pharisees laid great stress on the rite of purification before meals (Mar 7:2-4; Mat 15:1-3); and the Rabbins put the act of eating with unwashed hands in the same category as the sin of impurity. From the surprise of His host, Jesus takes occasion to stigmatize the false devotion of the Pharisees; He does not mince matters; for after what has just passed (Luk 11:15), war is openly declared. He denounces: 1 st. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees (Luk 11:39-42); 2 d. Their vainglorious spirit (Luk 11:43); 3 d. The evil influence which their false devotion exercises over the whole people (Luk 11:44).

Vers. 39-42. Their Hypocrisy.And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. 40. Ye fools, did not He that made that which is without, make that which is within also? 41. Rather give alms of such things as are within; and, behold, all things are clean unto you. 42. But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

God had appointed for His people certain washings, that they might cultivate the sense of moral purity in His presence. And this is what the Pharisees have brought the rite to; multiplying its applications at their pleasure, they think themselves excused thereby from the duty of heart purification. Was it possible to go more directly in opposition to the divine intention: to destroy the practice of the duty by their practices, the end by the means? Meyer and Bleek translate , now, in the sense of time: Things have now come to such a pass with you… It is more natural to give it the logical sense which it often has: Well now! There you are, you Pharisees! I take you in the act. If, in the second member of the verse, the term , the inward part, was not supplemented by , your inward part, the most natural sense of the first member would be this: Ye make clean the outside of the vessels in which ye serve up the repast to your guests. Bleek maintains this meaning for the first proposition, notwithstanding the in the second, by joining this pron. to the two substantives and : But the inside [of the cups and platters] is full [of the products] of your ravenings and your wickedness. But, 1. This connection of is forced; 2. Luk 11:40 does not admit of this sense, for we must understand by Him who made both that which is without and that which is within, the potter who made the plates, the goldsmith who fashioned the cups, which is absurd. As in Luk 11:40 the , He that made, is very evidently the Creator, the inward part, Luk 11:40 and Luk 11:39, can only be that of man, the heart. We must therefore allow an ellipsis in Luk 11:39, such as frequently occurs in comparisons, and by which, for the sake of conciseness, one of the two terms is suppressed in each member of the comparison: Like a host who should set before his guests plates and cups perfectly cleansed outside, [but full of filth inside], 39a, ye think to please God by presenting to Him [your bodies purified by lustrations, but at the same time] your inward part full of ravening and wickedness, 39b. The inward part denotes the whole moral side of human life. , raveningavarice carried out in act; , wickednessthe inner corruption which is the source of it. Jesus ascends from sin in act to its first principle.

The apostrophe, ye fools, Luk 11:40, is then easily understood, as well as the argument on which it rests. God, who made the body, made the soul also; the purification of the one cannot therefore, in His eyes, be a substitute for the other. A well-cleansed body will not render a polluted soul acceptable to Him, any more than a brightly polished platter will render distasteful meat agreeable to a guest; for God is a spirit. This principle lays pharisaism in the dust. Some commentators have given this verse another meaning, which Luther seems to adopt: The man who has made (pure) the outside, has not thereby made (pure) the inside. But this meaning of is inadmissible, and the heading the proposition proves that it is interrogative.

The meaning of the parallel passage in Mat 23:25-26 is somewhat different: The contents of the cup and platter must be purified by filling them only with goods lawfully acquired; in this way, the outside, should it even be indifferently cleansed, will yet be sufficiently pure. It is at bottom the same thought, but sufficiently modified in form, to prove that the change cannot be explained by the use of one and the same written source, but must arise from oral tradition.

To the rebuke administered there succeeds the counsel, Luk 11:41. We have translated by rather. The literal sense, excepting, is thus explained: All those absurdities swept away, here is what alone remains. At first sight, this saying appears to correspond with the idea expressed in Matthew’s text, rather than with the previous saying in Luke. For the expression , that which is within, cannot in this verse refer to the inward part of man, but denotes undoubtedly the contents of the cups and platters. But it is precisely because , that which is within, is not at all synonymous with , the inward part, in the preceding context, that Luke has employed a different expression. , the contents of the cups and platters, denotes what remains in those vessels at the close of the feast. The meaning is: Do you wish, then, that those meats and those wines should not be defiled, and should not defile you? Do not think that it is enough for you carefully to wash your hands before eating; there is a surer means: let some poor man partake of them. It is the spirit of love, O ye Pharisees, and not material lustrations, which will purify your banquets. , and behold; the result will be produced as if by magic. Is it not selfishness which is the real pollution in the eyes of God? The , give, is opposed to , ravening, Luk 11:39.

This saying by no means includes the idea of the merit of works. Could Jesus fall into pharisaism at the very moment when He was laying it in the dust? Love, which gives value to the gift, excludes by its very nature that seeking of merit which is the essence of pharisaism.

The , but, Luk 11:42, sets the conduct of the Pharisees in opposition to that which has been described Luk 11:41, in order to condemn them by a new contrast; still, however, it is the antithesis between observances and moral obedience. Every Israelite was required to pay the tithe of his income (Lev 27:30; Num 18:21). The Pharisees had extended this command to the smallest productions in their gardens, such as mint, rue, and herbs, of which the law had said nothing. Matthew mentions other plants, anise and cummin (Luk 23:23). Could it be conceived that the one writer could have made so frivolous a change on the text of the other, or on a common document?

In opposition to those pitiful returns, which are their own invention, Jesus sets the fundamental obligations imposed by the law, which they neglect without scruple. , judgment; here the discernment of what is just, the good sense of the heart, including justice and equity (Sirach 33:34). Matthew adds and , mercy and faith, and omits the love of God, which Luke gives. The two virtues indicated by the latter correspond to the two parts of the summary of the law.

The moderation and wisdom of Jesus are conspicuous in the last words of the verse; He will in no wise break the old legal mould, provided it is not kept at the expense of its contents.

Ver. 43. Vainglory.Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets.

The uppermost seats in the synagogues were reserved for the doctors. This rebuke is found more fully developed, Luk 20:45-47.

Ver. 44. Contagious Influence.Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.

Jesus by this figure describes the moral fact which He elsewhere designates as the leaven of the Pharisees. According to Num 19:16, to touch a grave rendered a man unclean for eight days, as did the touch of a dead body. Nothing more easy, then, than for one to defile himself by touching with his foot a grave on a level with the ground, without even suspecting its existence. Such is contact with the Pharisees; men think they have to do with saints: they yield themselves up to their influence, and become infected with their spirit of pride and hypocrisy, against which they were not put on their guard. In Matthew (Mat 23:27), the same figure receives a somewhat different application. A man looks with complacency at a sepulchre well built and whitened, and admires it. But when, on reflection, he says: Within there is nothing save rottenness, what a different impression does he experience! Such is the feeling which results from observing the Pharisees.

That the two texts should be borrowed from the same document, or taken the one from the other, is quite as inconceivable as it is easy to understand how oral tradition should have given to the same figure those two different applications.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

LI.

DINING WITH A PHARISEE, JESUS DENOUNCES THAT SECT.

cLUKE XI. 37-54.

c37 Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. [The repast to which Jesus was invited was a morning meal, usually eaten between ten and eleven o’clock. The principal meal of the day was eaten in the evening. Jesus dined with all classes, with publicans and Pharisees, with friends and enemies.] 38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed himself before dinner. [The Pharisee marveled at this because the tradition of the elders required them to wash their hands before eating, and, if they had been in a crowd where their bodies might have been touched by some unclean person, they washed their whole bodies. It was a custom which ministered to pride and self-righteousness.] 39 The Lord said to him [Our Lord’s speech is unsparingly denunciatory. To some it seems strange that Jesus spoke thus in a house where he was an invited guest. But our Lord never suspended the solemn work of reproof out of mere compliment. He was governed by higher laws than those of conventional politeness], Now ye the Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness. 40 Ye foolish ones, did not he that made the outside make the inside also? [Since God made both the inner and the outer, a true reverence for him requires that both parts be alike kept clean.] 41 But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, all things are clean unto you. [That is, give your inner life, your love, mercy, compassion, etc., to the blessing of mankind, and then your inner purity will make you proof [312] against outward defilement– Mat 15:11, Tit 1:15, Rom 14:4.] 42 But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and every herb, and pass over justice and the love of God: but these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. [The Pharisees in paying the tenth part, or tithe, to God, were so exact that they offered the tenth part of the seed even of the spearmint, rue and other small garden herbs, and many contended that the very stalks of these plants should also be tithed. Jesus commends this care about little things, but nevertheless rebukes the Pharisees because they were as careless about big things, such as justice, and the love of God, as they were careful about herb seed. Rue was a small shrub about two feet high, and is said to have been used to flavor wine, and for medicinal purposes.] 43 Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the chief seats in the synagogues, and the salutations in the marketplaces. [They were vainglorious, loving the honors and attentions given by men ( Joh 5:44). They loved on week days to be saluted in the marketplace, and on the Sabbath to sit in the semi-circular row of seats which were back of the lectern, or desk of the reader, and which faced the congregation.] 44 Woe unto you! for ye are as the tombs which appear not, and the men that walk over them know it not. [According to the Mosaic law, any one who touched a grave was rendered unclean ( Num 19:16). That they might not touch graves and be made unclean without knowing it, the Jews white-washed their graves and tombs once a year. But Jesus likens a Pharisee to graves which defiled men unawares. Their hypocrisy concealed their true nature, so that men were injured and corrupted by their influence without being aware of it. Jesus pronounces three woes upon the Pharisees for three sins, viz.: 1. Hypocrisy, shown in pretending to be be very careful when they were really extremely careless; 2. Vainglory; 3. Corruption of the public morals.] 45 And one of the lawyers answering saith unto him, Teacher, in saying this thou reproachest us also. [Lightfoot supposes that a [313] scribe was one who copied the law of Moses, while a lawyer expounded the oral law or traditions of the elders. But it is more likely that the terms were used interchangeably. They leaned to the Pharisee party, and hence this one felt the rebuke which Jesus addressed to that party. The scribe intimated that Jesus had spoken hastily, and his speech is a suggestion to Jesus to correct or modify his unguarded words. But Jesus made no mistakes and spoke no hasty words.] 46 And he said, Woe unto you lawyers also! for ye load men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. [We have seen in the traditions with regard to the Sabbath how these Jewish lawyers multiplied the burdens which Moses had placed upon the people. They were careful to lay these burdens upon others, but equally careful not to bear them themselves–no, not even to keep the law of Moses itself– Mat 23:2, Mat 23:3.] 47 Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 So ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers: for they killed them, and ye build their tombs. [Tombs were usually dug in the rock in the sides of hills or cliffs. To build them therefore was to decorate or ornament the entrance. Though their act in building the sepulchres was a seeming honor to the prophets, God did not accept it as such. A prophet is only truly honored when his message is received and obeyed. The lawyers were not in fellowship with the prophets, but with those who murdered the prophets: hence the Saviour pictures the whole transaction from the killing of the prophets to the building of their sepulchres as one act in which all concurred, and all of which were guilty. Abbott gives the words a figurative meaning, thus: your fathers slew the prophets by violence, and you bury them by false teaching.] 49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles; and some of them they shall kill and persecute; 50 that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this [314] generation [The phrase “wisdom of God” has been very puzzling, for the words spoken by Jesus are not found in any Old Testament book. Among the explanations the best is that which represents Jesus as quoting the trend or tenor of several prophecies such as 2Ch 24:19-22, 2Ch 36:14-16, Pro 1:20-33. It may, however, be possible that Jesus is here publishing a new decree or conclusion of God, for the words specifically concerned the present generation. If so, Jesus assents to the decree of the Father by calling it “the wisdom of God,” and the language is kindred to that at Mat 11:25, Mat 11:26]; 51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary: yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation. [Abel is accounted a prophet because his form of sacrifice prefigured that of Christ. His murder is described at Gen 4:1-8, the first historical book of the Bible, while that of Zachariah is described at 2Ch 24:20-22, in the last historical book of the Old Testament. From the record of one, therefore, to the record of the other embraces the entire catalogue of the Old Testament martyrs. Tradition assigns one of the four great sepulchral monuments at the foot of Olivet to Zachariah. That generation sanctioned all the sins of the past and went beyond them to the crucifixion of the Son of God. The best comment on this passage is the parable at Luk 20:9-16. God made that generation the focus of the world’s light and privilege, but the men of that time made it the focus of the world’s wickedness and punishment. The punishment began about thirty-seven years later in the war with Rome, which lasted five years and culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem.] 52 Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. [A true knowledge of the Scriptures was a key which opened the door to the glories of Christ and his kingdom. This the lawyer had given away by teaching not the contents of the book, but the rubbish and trifles of tradition. They did not open the door for themselves, and by their [315] pretentious interference they confused others in their efforts to open it.] 53 And when he was come out from thence, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press upon him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things; 54; laying wait for him, to catch something out of his mouth. [They plied him with many questions, hoping that they could irritate him into making a hot or hasty answer. For methods used to entrap Jesus see Mat 22:15-17, Mat 22:23-28, Mat 22:34-36, Mat 22:46]

[FFG 312-316]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

BAPTIZO NOT ALWAYS A TOTAL SUBMERSION, BUT A PURIFICATION

Luk 11:37-42. But while He was speaking, a Pharisee asked Him that He may dine with him; having come in, lie sat down at the table; and the Pharisee seeing, was astonished because He was not first baptized before dinner. It is a well-established fact that the Pharisees, pursuant to the tradition of the elders, were accustomed to wash their hands before eating, lest they had contracted pollution by contact with Gentiles, unclean animals, or some other impurity. Here, where the English says wash, the word is ebaptisthe, the passive voice and aorist tense of baptizo, the word constantly used in the New Testament for Christian baptism. The case here is clear and decisive that it only means for Jesus to wash His hands, the very idea of submerging His whole body under water being utterly out of the question. But you say His hands were immersed. That might be so, or it may have been done by affusion. But that is not the point of investigation. It is not said that His hands were baptized, but that Jesus Himself was baptized. Hence it follows, as an irresistible sequence, that when His hands were washed, his entire person was baptized. We simply give this as an honest exegete, expecting to meet you all at the judgment- bar; and not that I want to keep any of you out of the river. On the contrary, I exhort you to follow your convictions and satisfy your conscience. (1Pe 3:21)

And the Lord said to Him, Now, you Pharisees purify the outside of the cup and the plate, but the inside of you is full of extortion and wickedness. Ye fools, did not He who made the outside also make the inside? Therefore give alms of your possessions, and, behold, all things are pure to you.

Where E.V. says make clean, the word is catharizo, which is here our Saviors definition of baptizo. So you need not ransack the world to find out the meaning of baptize. It has no meaning in the Bible but to purify, catharizo being the word constantly used in the Bible to signify a purification. Then our Savior assures these Pharisees that if they will give alms, all things will be pure to them, showing up the fact that the love of God in the heart is really the baptism which he requires, superseding and climaxing all ceremonies.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Luk 11:37-54. Condemnation of Pharisees and Scribes.Cf. (though the arrangement is different) Matthew 23*, where the Jerusalem setting is more suitable (perhaps Lk. wishes to make the Jerusalem discourses end with the apocalypse of Mark 13). It is strange that Jesus should offend His host, first by deed, then by word. The Pharisees emphasized outer cleanliness at the expense of inward, but on the other hand early Christian asceticism distorted the teaching and example of Jesus, and produced a crowd of unwashed saints.

Luk 11:38 reminds us of Mar 7:2.

Luk 11:39. of the cup and of the platter may be an insertion from Mat 23:25.

Luk 11:40. Wellhausen, following Codex Rez, transposes outside and inside: Has not the man who has cleansed the inward cleansed the outward as well? There is LXX evidence for make = clean. Similarly in Luk 11:41, by a slight change in the Aramaic (which the Gr. translator has perhaps misread) Well-hausen gets the good sense, Cleanse those things which are within, etc. As it stands the verse means (Instead of washing the outside of the dishes) give the contents to the poor, and so avoid the real defilement of extortion (Luk 11:39).

Luk 11:42. Codex Bez omits but these ought ye to have done, etc.; the words conflict with Jesus rebuke in the context.

Luk 11:44. The change from Mt. may be due to Lk.s desire to make the saying more intelligible to his Gentile readers.

Luk 11:45-54 forms a series of woes, nominally against the Scribes, though Luk 11:47-51 is against the Jews generally. One can understand the interruption in 45 (reproachest, lit., insultest).

Luk 11:46=Mat 23:4, Luk 11:47 f.= Mat 23:29 f., Luk 11:49-51=Mat 23:34-36.

Luk 11:49. the Wisdom of God: there is no trace of any apocryphal book bearing this title, nor can we say (though Mt. and Lk. thought so) that Jesus is describing Himself by this title: He could not have said that He was sending forth prophets and wise men and scribes (so Mt.: Lk.s apostles is a Christian accommodation). Wisdom is a favourite Hebrew figure to express the yearning of the Divine Spirit over Israel. The original saying spoke of Gods dealings with His people: Therefore the Wisdom of God (hath) said, Behold, etc. On the questions involved in the parallel with Mt., and also the severance of Luk 13:34 f. from this context, see Harnack, Sayings, pp. 168ff., Streeter in Oxford Studies, p. 151ff., Bacon in Exp., Dec. Luk 19:15.

Luk 11:52=Mat 23:13key of knowledge, i.e. the knowledge of how to enter the Kingdom.

Luk 11:53 f. Lk. only.to press upon Him vehemently: better to follow Him up closely, or perhaps to scheme and plot eagerly.to provoke him, etc., lit. to draw from His mouth, i.e. to cross-examine Him, to trip Him into some fatal utterance.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 37

Besought him to dine with him; with no friendly feelings, however, as would seem from the conversation which ensued.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

11:37 {10} And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat.

(10) The service of God consists not in outward cleanliness and planned rites or ceremonies, but in the spiritual righteousness of the heart and charity.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

5. The climax of Pharisaic opposition 11:37-54 (cf. Matthew 23:1-36; Mark 12:38-40)

The theme of opposition to Jesus continues in this section, but the source of opposition changes from the people generally to the Pharisees and, even more particularly, to their lawyers (scribes). Jesus’ responses also changed from warnings and exhortations to denunciations. Jesus condemned the teachings of the Pharisees, the light that was darkness (Luk 11:35), rather than the Pharisees and the lawyers as individuals.

The differences in the Matthean account of Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees (Mat 23:1-36) raise questions about what Jesus really said and how the evangelists recorded what He said.

"We know from his practice elsewhere that Matthew combines material from several sources and rearranges the order, whereas on the whole Luke does not conflate his sources or re-order his material. It is, therefore, unlikely that Matthew has preserved the original order here . . ." [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., p. 492.]

Probably we are again dealing with two different teaching occasions. This is Jesus’ last address to the Pharisees recorded in Luke.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The question of true cleanliness 11:37-41

"Bitter as was the enmity of the Pharisaic party against Jesus, it had not yet so far spread, nor become so avowed, as in every place to supersede the ordinary rules of courtesy." [Note: Edersheim, 2:204.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Many of Jesus’ teaching opportunities arose during meals (cf. Luk 14:1-24; Mat 15:1-20; Mat 23:1-36; Mar 7:1-22). This was one such occasion. Jesus offended His host by not washing ritually before eating. Luke omitted an explanation of the Jewish custom (cf. Mat 15:1-9; Mar 7:1-4) and only recorded the reason for the Pharisee’s objection. The Mosaic Law did not demand this washing (Gr. baptizo), but it had become customary, and the Pharisees viewed it as a safeguard against defilement.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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