Beware Of Pharisees And Sadducees

Issues – April 2019 – Grace & Truth Magazine

BEWARE OF
Pharisees And Sadducees

Our Lord told us to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” He was speaking not of the “leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Mt. 16:11-12 ESV ). The Lord was warning us against the effects of the denial of the truth of the resurrection by the Sadducees (see Acts 23:8) and of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees (consider Lk. 12:1). Today, we encounter Sadducee-like and Pharisee-like people. We are to beware of the leaven of both!

Today’s Sadducees
Sadducee-like religious people will be deists. They will believe in God and quote the Bible but reject important truths it contains, such as: the resurrection, the occurrence of miracles, biblical inspiration. These individuals are often highly educated, highly regarded people of importance in this world.

Scoffing at the resurrection. This is not a new phenomenon. The Sadducees of Jesus’ day scoffed by asking the Lord a trick question: If a woman were widowed several times, whose wife would she be in the resurrection? (Mt. 22:23-28). In the apostle Paul’s day, scoffers’ questions were different. They asked, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (1 Cor. 15:35).

The Lord neatly disposed of the marriage question by saying that “in the resurrection [we] neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Mt. 22:30). Paul took care of the resurrected body question by saying our mortal bodies will have put on immortality and that we will be changed (1 Cor. 15:51-54). Exactly how God our Creator will go about making new bodies from those we now have – or from those who have been destroyed in some way – remains for God to reveal to us.

We base our conviction of resurrection truth on the fact that Jesus’ resurrection was established by a multitude of witnesses. He died, was entombed and was raised again on the third day as He prophesied. The risen Lord was seen by Cephas and the Twelve, and then by more than 500 brethren, most of whom were alive at the time of Paul’s writing his first epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:3-6). Also, our Lord taught, “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (Jn. 5:28-29).

Denying or explaining miracles away. The changing of our bodies into a form suitable for eternity will indeed be a miracle, but today’s Sadducees will deny the occurrence of miracles. For example, Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. president from 1801 to 1809, is reputed to have been a user of the Bible but one that had all of the accounts of the miracles edited out of it!

Such individuals will also try to explain miracles away. Since numerous miracles are events in nature, many of them may have had secondary “natural” causes. For example, Jericho was situated in a rift valley, in an earthquake zone. Yet even if a secondary cause of the collapse of its walls (Josh. 6:20) was an earthquake, it cannot explain its miraculous occurrence just at the critical moment of Israel’s advance.1

Similarly, the crossing of the Jordan recorded in Joshua 3:11-17 has interesting parallels recorded in history:

• During 1266 “the bed of the river was left dry for ten hours in consequence of a landslide,” 2 and
• “In 1927 an earthquake caused the west bank to collapse ... and the Jordan was dammed up for more than 21 hours.” 2

These events may indicate a “natural” explanation for what had happened centuries earlier but they in no way detract from the supernatural intervention which opened the way to Israel “just at the moment when they needed to cross.” 2

Intellectual sermons. Sadducee-like preachers deliver well-constructed sermons teaching morals, ethics and philosophy. However, we are warned, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition” (Col. 2:8). This teaching (for example, that we should handle hardship by a “grin and bear it” attitude) is the stoicism, or systematic philosophy, of the Stoic philosophers! The Christian attitude is to see God at work in hardship, disciplining us “for our good, that we may share in His holiness” (Heb. 12:10).

God tells us that the way to deal with hardship is: “Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet” (Heb. 12:12-13), “casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7).

Today’s Pharisees
The conservative Christian is far more likely to be attracted to Phariseeism than to Sadduceeism. Conservatives will be tempted to distort the moral and religious precepts of Scripture, thinking that they then become more righteous. In distorting the Word of God they easily obtain a formal, mechanical self-righteousness that is without humility. There will result a greater desire to righteously punish sinners than to restore them.

For example, “the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery” (Jn. 8:3) to Jesus for stoning to death. Seemingly, they had lain in wait and were pleased to have caught her in the act. We see, however, our Lord leading them into self-judgment. When they judged themselves they left one by one, leaving Him to restore her by saying, “Go and from now on sin no more” (vv.6-11).

Regulations for self-righteousness. Scripture challenges those who have pharisaical tendencies by asking, “Do you submit to regulations ... according to human precepts and teachings [that] have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body but ... are of no value” (Col. 2:20,22-23)? Heeding such regulations promotes self-righteousness and a desire to impose them on others. We are instead to live “after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness ... [being] kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave [us]” (Eph. 4:24,32).

Depriving of pleasures and rest. The teachings of pharisaical people tend to portray God as wanting to deprive human beings of pleasure. However, we are assured that at His “right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). They will be a different kind of pleasure, but pleasures they will be!

God blesses man with earthly pleasures even from food and drink – “the brain releases feel good chemicals after meals.” 3 Our Lord participated in dinners like those in Luke 5:29-30, and His disciples “ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41). Pharisees called Him a “glutton and a drunkard” (Mt. 11:19). However, Christ’s life “was essentially a condemnation of theirs” 4; and ours is to be like His: “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit ... [pursuing] what makes for peace and mutual understanding” (Rom. 14:17,19).

A colleague told me he did not enjoy visiting his aunt far away. Asked why, he replied, “She is strict, very strict.” It turned out that I knew his aunt. Her kind of strictness made her not a testimony to the goodness of the Lord but to her own personal goodness!

It is well known that to be productive we need a time of rest and recuperation. After His disciples had worked at what He sent them forth to do (see Mt. 10:5-8) He said to them, “Come away by yourselves ... and rest for a while” (Mk. 6:31). He is not a hard master!

What can we do for wholesome recreation? The apostle Paul gave us some principles to guide us:

• He asked rhetorically, “Why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience?” (1 Cor. 10:29). This was asked in connection with another matter of conscience. The converse of this is also relevant: “Why should his or her liberty be determined by my conscience?”
• “All things are lawful ... but not all things build up” (v.23).
• “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (v.31).

Our recreational activity itself need not glorify God specifically, but it should be beneficial in its result.

Leaven
When the Lord spoke of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, His disciples took Him literally. The Lord, however, was using the language figuratively to mean not yeast but wrong teaching (Mt. 16:12), “To treat figurative language as though it were literal (as the disciples did) and to treat literal language as if it were figurative constitute two of the greatest hindrances to understanding the meaning of the Bible.” 5

In the Bible, leaven is presented as a contaminant of evil, which rendered unsuitable otherwise spiritually valuable things (see Lev. 2:11). Since all truth is God’s truth, even some of the teaching of today’s Pharisees or Sadducees may be truth, but our Lord warns us to beware of it. Why? Over-intellectualized doctrine and over-legalized doctrine are deceptive and often contain little of spiritual value. He wants us to avoid contamination from the teaching of both. In short, we are to watch and “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Mt. 16:11).

ENDNOTES
1. Blair, Hugh J., Joshua in Guthrie, D. and Motyer, J. A. et al. The New Bible Commentary Revised; InterVarsity Press, 1970; p.239.
2. Ibid., p.237.
3. Sutherland, Stephani; “Food High,” Scientific American, Dec. 2017; p.20.
4. Vine, W. E.; An Expository Dictionary Of New Testament Words; Volume III, p.181.
5. McQuilkan, Robertson; Understanding And Applying The Bible, Revised Edition; Moody Press; 1992; p.166.

By Alan H. Crosby

Leaven was early used in the fermentation of bread. As a symbol it is always used in Scripture for the working of the human element, whether mind or flesh, in the things of God, and hence evil. It was strictly forbidden to be burnt in any offering made by fire (Lev. 2:11). But in the peace offering, besides the unleavened cakes and wafers, the offerer was to present leavened bread, which was to be eaten (7:12-13, 23:17-18). Its presence here might seem to suggest an exception to the statement that leaven always signifies a form of evil, but it is not, for the peace offering typifies worship, and there, alas, the worshiper is not entirely free from indwelling sin. In the parable of “the leaven hid in the meal,” it represents the same evil, which in an insidious way permeates the mass with which it is mixed. The solemn words are added, “till the whole was leavened” (Lk. 13:20-21 kjv). It is only a too true similitude of the kingdom of God, for everywhere evil is spreading therein. In Matthew 16:6-12 leaven is applied to the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. In the church, leaven, when discovered, must be purged out, for “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6-8); but in the kingdom it is represented as working until all is leavened (Mt. 13:33). It is then that the King will purge out from His kingdom all that offend and commit iniquity and cast them into a furnace of fire. —Concise Bible Dictionary