Matthew 23:29-36 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started! “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.
We see in the above verses Jesus adding yet another woe to the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. These people are the leaders of the religious community of the Jews. As leaders of Judaism, their lives and teachings ought to have revealed God to the people, what it is like to be close to God. They were supposedly the epitome of righteousness and truth. But instead of that reality, Jesus said they are the opposite of truth and righteousness; they are wolves in sheep’s clothing. (See Matthew 7:15) These leaders represented aggrandizing of self over honoring the God of Israel. Jesus’ anger was great against them. How will you escape being condemned to hell? As with the angels that rebelled against God, these people of corrupt hearts are destined to eternal damnation. The angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. (Jude 6) Their hypocrisy, their willingness to live lives of deception, was so evil that Jesus called them a brood of vipers. John the Baptist also called them vipers, toxic snakes that bring death, not life. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Matthew 3:7) Jesus’ anger was hot against these religious leaders. They were hell-bound, hypocrites, wearing clothes depicting righteousness but inside were dead bones, rotten flesh. They portrayed that they were of God, but in reality they were full of evil. They wanted to destroy God’s anointed one, Jesus Christ. The content of their hearts was the same as their forefathers who killed righteous, godly people in the past. Now, they wanted to kill Jesus, but they claimed they were different from those in the past who killed and persecuted the righteous. To accentuate their hearts were different from their ancestors, they paid homage to the prophets of old by building tombs for them and decorating their graves. Illustrating by their acts of respect for the old prophets that if they had lived in those former times, they would not have done evil to these messengers of God. However, Jesus recognized their hypocrisy, for He knew they had the same irreparable gene of murder in their hearts as their forefathers. They intended to kill Jesus, God’s righteous One who lives in their generation. Therefore, Jesus proclaims the judgment of God on them, upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. No matter what their pretensions were of honoring former holy people, God is going to judge them harshly for their attempt to thwart God’s salvation plan as was their ancestors’ purposes in killing and persecuting the prophets. However, inadvertently, they will be doing God’s work by killing Jesus.
Jesus said this wicked work of the devil will continue even after the cross. Sadly, the instruments in this evil work of the devil are the religious leaders. They will not be satisfied in killing Jesus, they will want to destroy his followers too. So Jesus said to them, Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started! To reveal just how wicked you are and why you are destined for hell, I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. We see Jesus’ prophecy being fulfilled in Acts. Starting with Stephen being stoned to death, we see the religious leaders as vicious hounds chasing God’s people from town to town. Stephen in his stoning castigates these leaders in his last moments on earth. You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it. (Acts 7:51-53) Paul stands by during this stoning wishing to do likewise to Jesus’ followers. Later he is given a commission by the Jewish leaders to chase down the Christians from town to town. He has murder in his heart, just as his forefathers had to thwart God’s plan of salvation. He desired to kill every last one of them that carried the salvation plan in their hearts. Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1-2) As we see with his fellow Pharisees and with the teachers of the law, Paul was on his way to hell. He was fighting against God’s plan of redemption for mankind. He was a leader in this devilish work; fulfilling Jesus' prediction that his followers would be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. (Matthew 24:9) Paul, the point man in this wicked work, opposed God, the Creator of all things, who stopped Paul on the road to Damascus. Jesus confronts him there, but not with condemnation as He had done with the religious leaders in Jerusalem. He merely asked Paul, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4) Jesus now uses the zealousness of the Pharisees, their willingness to tithe their spices for the work of God. He chooses a Pharisee bound for destruction and turned him around to work for the Good News. Paul does not work for God to accrue honor and respect as was the case for the Jerusalem religious leaders. He works for God as a lowly slave, willing to be put into any situation for God’s glory. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones. (2 Corinthians 11:23-25) No longer would he be the persecutor, the killer. From the time of Damascus he would be the hunted; he would receive the persecution; and he would hear death threats from the people he was trying to reach for God. Paul would no longer carry on the work of his forefathers and his religious order. He would now, as a member of the kingdom of God, work for the redemption of all mankind.
The fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy of judgment on these religious leaders came about quickly. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation. Not many years after Jesus’ death, Rome put down a rebellion in Israel, destroying the Temple and putting to death the priesthood in Jerusalem. God fulfilled Jesus’ words, the Temple was ransacked and destroyed completely, not a stone left upon a stone. The glory of Israel was destroyed; the worship of God in the temple was gone. Israel, the carrier of Good News, was lost in the rubble. But the Good news carried on through people who were scattered all over the world. The Pharisees and their worship ceased, but God’s true message of redemption through Jesus Christ through the Jewish and Gentile believers invaded every land and was found in many people of different ethnic and racial groups. The Jews, God’s people chosen to carry the redemption seed, had completed their mission. A new birth has come to all who repent of their sins and accept the Good News that Christ paid for the sins of all people. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law could see no reason for any other plan than obedience to the law; the law they did not obey completely, for they could not live up to the cumbersome burdens they placed on the backs of the people. They were hypocrites, deceivers, making God’s goodness opaque to the people: God’s justice, mercy and faithfulness. (Matthew 23:23) As with John the Baptist, Jesus saw them as vipers, killing the correct view of God, causing death for the Jewish people. Without knowing it, they were trying to hinder the seed of promise by their opposition to Jesus, but in reality, they were furthering God’s plan of redemption for all people, for the cross was Jesus’ destination. Their blindness to Jesus as the Redeemer birthed eternal life through the cross. Their existence would end, but the Good News would flourish in the hearts of finite men and bring eternal life to them. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, our earthly bodies are planted in the ground in death, just as a seed. But they will flourish, be raised forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. We are buried as natural humans, but we will be raised as spiritual beings. The first man Adam was a living person just as all species are living, but the last man, Jesus, is a life-giving spirit. The first man, Adam, could only produce living creatures from his loins, but the second man, Jesus, produces living creatures for eternity. We who are born again unto a new life that is forever ours praise God for his wonderful redemption plan. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law could not envision such a wonderful plan. Their hearts were wrapped in the things of this world. They valued the dust of this world more than the holy things of God, wrapped eternally in the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Praise God today that you have been saved by the blood of the Lamb!
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