Introduction
Jesus did not emerge from the rabbinic schools or priestly families of his day. He emerged within a prophetic movement inaugurated by John the Baptist that attacked the failed system of religion offered by the synagogues, Temple, and religious leaders. He accepted the critique of Israelite religion in the days of the prophets as an appropriate critique for his own day. This ‘Kingdom of God’ movement stood over against the established, Jewish religion even if it was—importantly—also a fulfillment of it.
Just what were the failures of Jewish religion in Jesus’ day? The Gospels focus on two groupings of religious leadership in particular: the scribes and Pharisees, and the Sadducees and chief priests. The former represented a Law-based form of Judaism that was able to survive even the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. The Pharisees were not priests but businessmen dedicated to living according to Jewish legal precepts, such as tithing. The scribes were persons learned in the Law who allied with the Pharisees in their attachment to the Law. The Sadducees and chief priests offered a Temple-based form of Judaism that focussed on the Temple, with its sacrificial system and liturgies. The Sadducees were priests with control of the Jewish legal body, the Sanhedrin (which included Pharisees). Jesus was opposed to both groups while He upheld the Law and honoured the Temple. He sought no compromise with any of the religious groups and leaders of His day and, falling afoul of them all, they plotted His death.
Jesus’ Encounter with the Sadducees and Chief Priests
The Synoptic Gospels tell only of one of Jesus’ trips to Jerusalem as an adult, when he went to the cross. (John's Gospel reports Jesus' various trips to Jerusalem around religious festivals.) As priests and religious leaders, the Sadducees would only be found in Jerusalem, and it was there that Jesus encountered them. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and challenge of the Temple rulers is climactic for his ministry and wholly confrontational. Indeed, it leads to His death. Jesus’ initial action in Jerusalem was to cleanse the Temple—a direct indictment on the insufficiency of the Sadducean and chief priests’ religious responsibilities and oversight. Despite their apt management of Judaism’s political situation with the Romans, the religious festivals, the sacrifices, the finances, and governance of strictly Jewish religious matters, they had utterly failed as far as Jesus was concerned. They had simply failed to produce the righteousness expected in God’s Kingdom. Whatever the details, what they offered the nation was wholly inadequate and required an entirely different sacrifice for sins—Jesus’ own sacrificial death on the cross.
The Sadducees had
reached a point beyond any hope of reform.
They needed to be replaced: there was nothing that they offered that
needed to continue. Jesus did not offer
to sit down and discuss matters; he came to Jerusalem to judge and to offer the
alternative of himself. Ever since, the
challenge remains: are keepers of the faith (now Christianity) offering a
worship of pure and righteousness lives of themselves and those they oversee,
or are they keepers of a religious institution that does not produce the fruit
of righteousness? For Christians, this
also means recognizing that all worship is directed to God through Jesus’
provision of his righteous life and pure sacrifice as only through His shed
blood is there forgiveness of sins and cleansing from all unrighteousness.
Jesus’ Use of the Old Testament to Criticise the Temple Priests
In Matthew’s Gospel,
Jesus offers three Scripture passages to explain his actions for cleansing the
Temple (Matthew 21:13, 16). They point
to a change in the worshippers, worship, and worship leaders. Jesus’ first reference is to Isaiah 56 (verse
7) with the phrase ‘house of prayer,’ that is, the Temple. The chapter speaks of an ethical failing in
general of God’s covenant people to ‘keep justice, and do righteousness’ (v.
1), keep the Sabbath, and keep their ‘hands from doing any evil’ (v. 2). The chapter makes ethics the definition of
right worship and is the key to membership in Israel. Thus, foreigners (Gentiles) and eunuchs are
not excluded from worship if they keep God’s covenant and Sabbaths (vv. 4, 6).
When Jesus cleanses the
Temple, his action is an enacted judgement on the constant failure of those
leading Israel in worship. Just as is
the case with Jesus’ next enacted judgement—the cursing the fig tree (Matthew
21:17-22)—Jesus’ claim is that the religious leaders of Israel have failed to
produce the fruit of righteousness. They
will, therefore, be judged decisively.
Matthew 24 foretells the coming of judgement on the Temple: Jesus says
that the Temple will be ruined. If Jesus
entered Jerusalem in AD 30, this prediction came exactly 40 years before its
fulfillment in AD 70.
This reference to Isaiah
56 emphasises the fact that religion means nothing if it does not produce the
righteousness God calls for in His covenant.
Having buildings and people and traditions and liturgies and religious
leaders mean nothing if the people remain in their sinful ways.
Jesus’ second reference
to an Old Testament text comes with his words, ‘den of robbers’ (Matthew
21:13). The reference is to Jeremiah 7
(verse 11). Once again, the text is
about the Temple and the failure of the Jews (specifically, the southern
Kingdom of Judah) to render moral righteousness. They seem to think that mere possession of
religion—of the Temple—guarantees them an acceptance by God. Jeremiah, however—and Jesus following his
prophetic challenge—says that the people have made God’s Temple a ‘den of
robbers.’ Jeremiah lists a number of
their sins: their lack of justice, oppression of sojourners (non-Israelites),
the fatherless, and widows, their shedding of innocent blood, idolatry,
stealing, murdering, committing of adultery, and dishonesty (swearing falsely)
(Jeremiah 7:5-9). Jeremiah warns the
people that they cannot do these things and think that God is with them simply
because they have the Temple in Jerusalem.
Rather, God is the one who chooses whether He will dwell in the Temple,
and He makes this choice based on whether they sin or live righteously: ‘…then
I will dwell in this place…’ (v. 7). The
challenge remains for every expression of the faith: do not confuse the
external features of religion—cathedrals, churches buildings, liturgies,
religious practices—with righteousness.
God cares about the peoples’ ways and deeds (Jeremiah 7:3). As there is no real ‘Temple’ without God
choosing to dwell in it, so there is no faith without the righteous life (‘ways
and deeds’).
The third text Jesus
references when he cleanses the Temple in Matthew’s Gospel comes from Psalm 8,
a psalm about worship. The psalm speaks
of creation’s worship of the Creator.
The setting is not the Temple but all the earth as God’s place of
worship. Thus, the text, as it is used
by Jesus, suggests that God does not need the Temple for his dwelling place. Nor does God need the worship that the
worship leaders offered in the Temple.
Jesus essentially replaces the worship of the priests with that of the
children singing his praises in the Temple courts: as Psalm 8 says, ‘babes and
infants’ can offer praise to God (verse 2).
The incident brings out a contrast between the Temple and Jesus, worship
through sacrifices and worship of Jesus, and the worship leaders and the
children leading in new worship. As
such, the passage challenges all forms of Christian faith to render worship to
Jesus, not reducing worship to the aesthetics of a magnificent place or
liturgy.
Jesus and the Sadducees’ Understanding of Scripture and God
When the Sadducees
challenge Jesus at the Temple, they try to catch him on his theology. Their purpose is to undermine his authority
before the people, showing that he lacks a sophisticated or academic enough
handling of the Scriptures to arrive at a rational theology. They try to catch him in the illogicality of
his theology of the resurrection—a theology that the Pharisees and people of
Israel would have shared. Thus, they
approach Jesus on a particular theological point that they themselves
hold. As Josephus says, the Sadducees
did not believe in angels or in the resurrection, and they only believed in a
canon of Scripture limited to the Pentateuch (Genesis through
Deuteronomy). By raising the question of
the resurrection, then, the Sadducees challenge Jesus in two ways: the
rationality of his theological position and the authority of his theological
position.
As to the rationality of Jesus’ theology, the
Sadducees offer the case of a woman who married seven times. They ask Jesus, ‘In the resurrection,
therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be?’ Jesus replies that, after the resurrection,
men and women no longer marry—in other words, there is no continuation of the
creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:27). There is no marriage since marriage between a
man and a woman exists to fulfill this mandate.
As to the authority of Scripture, the
Sadducees might have thought that they had caught Jesus. Some Old Testament texts might be cited to
establish a doctrine of the resurrection, such as Isaiah 26:19 or Daniel 12:2
(and a few others). But Jesus has the
challenge of answering the Sadducees with reference to their limited canon of
the Pentateuch. Thus, he cites Exodus
3:6, where God identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob-patriarchs living hundreds of years earlier. Jesus interprets this passage to say that God
is not the God of the dead but of the living (Matthew 22:32). Thus, these patriarchs, though dead many
years earlier, have a hope of the resurrection.
The argument is more than rhetorical.
God gives His name to Moses as ‘I AM’ (Exodus 3:14)—the One who has life
in Himself. This God, the Creator, is
equally the giver of life who will one day resurrect Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
from the dead.
In saying this, Jesus
criticizes the Sadducees’ approach to Scripture. He does not directly attack their limited
canon, although his own theological interpretation and message is taken from
the whole Old Testament (cf. Luke 16:29, 31; 24:27, 44; cf. Acts 26:22;
28:23). He does critique them for their
failure as interpreters of Scripture.
Jesus says to the Sadducees, ‘You know neither the Scriptures nor the
power of God’ (Matthew 22:29).
In challenging the Sadducees in this way, Jesus adds to his criticism that they do not know the power of God. The God who has life in Himself has great power—power enough to give life—is able to raise the dead. The life-giving power of the Creator is certainly in the Sadducees limited canon of Scripture, but it is not in their own, personal theology. Their hyper-rationality has become a way to read against Scripture. They have not only a wrong theology but also a wrong experience of God. One can hardly interpret texts such as the Pentateuch correctly—with all the references to God’s creative and redemptive power—if one has little to no belief in the power of God in the first place. Religion ends up being a head-faith, a collection of ideas, rather than a relationship with the One who can raise the dead. It becomes aesthetic rather than worshipful, therapeutic rather than pastoral, and academic rather than transformational.
Jesus’ Kingdom Righteousness and the Pharisees’ Ethic of Compromise
Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God was a direct attack on the moral compromise of religion in his day. In the Synoptic Gospels, His primary opponents were the Pharisees and scribes. One cannot compromise the moral demands of God while claiming to live under God’s reign. Such compromise, however, was the very stuff of the Pharisees and scribes while they at the same time claimed the moral high ground of following religious law. What they actually did, however, was use their interpretation of the Law to avoid its moral demands. For this reason, Jesus called them hypocrites--actors. The problem with the Pharisees and their learned interpreters of the law, the scribes, was not that they were legalists but that they found clever legal interpretations so that they could break the Law.
Thus, Jesus says to his disciples,
Matthew 5:20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Pharisees are misrepresented if they are presented as unloving legalists. That may be so in some respects, but their main problem was their crafting of an ethic of compromise. They used the Law in ways to avoid God’s higher demand of a righteousness of the heart. In a strange twist, the Law’s letter was used to avoid its intent. Love is not the undoing of demand but is itself a higher demand. As Jesus says,
Matthew
22:37-40 … You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is
the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second
is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On
these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Matthew 19:7-9 They [the Pharisees] said to him, "Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?" 8 He said to them, "It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery."
Thus, Jesus sweeps Moses’ compromise of divorce away in favour of
God’s ethic for marriage in creation. Life in the Kingdom of God brokers
no compromise with sin but calls instead for righteousness and holiness.
Anything less is not Kingdom righteousness.
Matthew 23:15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
Another cause leading the Pharisees to compromise their ethic was an interest in doing things that were self-serving. Jesus says of them that
Matthew 23:5-8 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.
Even the lure of money entered into their motives:
Luke 16:14-15 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. 15 So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.
Jesus’ opposition to the Pharisees was an opposition to moral compromise. He built upon John the Baptist’s call to be baptized with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in preparation for the coming of God’s Kingdom. He called his disciples to live fully under God’s rule without compromise. And he went to the cross to provide a sacrifice to save his people from their sins. But of the compromising Pharisees, he said,
Mark
7:6-9 ... Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is
written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from
me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human
precepts as doctrines.' 8 You abandon the
commandment of God and hold to human tradition." 9 Then
he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God
in order to keep your tradition!
Conclusion
Jesus’ Kingdom movement
was a reform movement. He did not try to
work within the Jewish religious structures of Law and Temple to bring reform,
but He continued to uphold the Law and honour the Temple. In order to bring reform to the compromising
and immoral interpretations of the Law practiced by hypocritical Pharisees and
scribes, He both upheld the details of the Law while providing a new
interpretation of it. Jesus understood
that an interpretation of the Law was necessary: there is no such thing as Law
that does not need interpretation. He
offered three approaches to the interpretation of the Law.
First, the Law must be
interpreted as an outward regulation of an inward devotion to God from the
heart. Without a ‘heart righteousness,’
the Law would become, as it had among the Pharisees and scribes, an outward set
of rules that allowed them to become religious actors, ‘hypocrites.’
Second, the Law must be
understood as the civil Law of Israel that was derived from but not exactly
equivalent to the Law of God, especially that reflected in creation. Thus, divorce might have been permitted by
Moses, but God’s intention in creation was that marriage between a man and a
woman was permanent. A creational lens
on the Law did not relax its precepts but heightened its commands so that there
was no room to compromise with sin.
Third, the Law needed to
be interpreted in light of and with reference to God’s character, which could
also be seen in His acts in salvation history.
God’s forgiveness, mercy, and love were key to a right interpretation of
the Law. God’s character and purposes,
moreover, came to full expression in Jesus Christ. In this way, Christ becomes ‘the Word,’ as
John wrote at the beginning of his Gospel.
The Law was an expression of the Word of God. They were Christ’s commandments (John 14.15). Jesus came from the Father to give His
disciples God’s Word of truth (John 17.8, 17).
Paul would express this by saying that Christ was the ‘end’ of the Law
(Romans 10.4). Either he meant by this
that Christ replaced the Law or that He was the goal and fulfillment of the Law,
and it is likely that some interpretation involving both views is true. Christ replaces the Law in that He accomplished
the righteousness toward which the Law aimed.
Inasmuch as He did so, He also fulfills the purposes of the Law. As Paul earlier and more explicitly stated in
the same epistle:
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not
do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he
condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be
fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the
Spirit (Romans 8.3-4).
The Law remains holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7.12), and its
precepts that apply to all people (i.e., not the civil and religious laws that worked
for Israel alone) remain for God’s Church.
Yet it represents a righteousness achieved only by Christ Jesus and by
those living in Him and not in the power of their own flesh.
The religious leaders of Israel, the Pharisees and Sadducees,
the scribes and priests, failed precisely where they made religion a religion
of the flesh or a human enterprise. The
Law was not to be manipulated. It did
not offer opportunities for an outward show of piety. Neither did the Temple. It did not offer a legal
and sacrificial system that was devoid of mercy (cf. Hosea 6.6, quoted by Jesus
in Matthew 9.13; 12.7). Christ embodied divine mercy and offered forgiveness
for sins through His sacrificial death, achieving for us the righteousness
toward which the Law pointed but which it was powerless to achieve. Thus, Jesus did not simply reform the
instruments of religion, the Law and the Temple, in Judaism; He transformed
them by achieving what they could not achieve.
He represented in Himself what they were but now understood in relation
to God’s character and purposes in creation and salvation history.
Where certain quasi-Christian expressions of religion fail is along
the same lines of Judaism in Jesus’ day.
Some try to manipulate the Biblical teaching on morality in the same way
that the scribes and Pharisees did. This
perversion of religion was nothing new in Jesus day: Isaiah warned of those ‘who
call evil good and good evil’ (5.20). Some
make religion all about the show of outward righteousness (now called ‘virtue
signalling’ and what Jesus called hypocrisy as the word had originally to do
with actors). Some make it all about
grand worship services without any expression of a heart for God. Jesus’ Kingdom righteousness was a religious
reform that began with a right devotion to God as Father, with a religion of
the heart, and with God’s mercy and forgiveness through the cross of Jesus Christ.
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