Luke 11:37-54--Woes to the Pharisees and Lawyers

Luke 11:37-54
English Standard Version

Woes to the Pharisees and Lawyers
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that 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. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”

45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 Woe 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 about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

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This passage may sound confusing to us because we are used to an abundance of water and we usually teach everyone from a young age to always wash their hands before eating (and after several other events when they could get dirty).  That was not normal at this time though--only the Pharisees were so focused on purity that ceremonial and ritualistic cleansings that were more for show than they were for actually making oneself clean.  Jesus didn't participate in the showy ritual that this Pharisee was putting on because He had a point to make--this was an extra requirement not in the Law that the Pharisees had made equal to the Law and Jesus is going to ask why they are so concerned with the outward appearance when they are so dirty on the inside.  Is it not the inside of the cup that the liquid touches that needs to be clean so that you don't get sick?  Jesus reminds them that God is Creator of the body (the outside) and the soul (the inside) and that they should make sure that both are clean.

Jesus then again condemns the Pharisees because they pride themselves on their tithing, which I mentioned just a minute ago, imagining that this is going to buy them favor with God, but God has already told them in the Old Testament:

He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8, ESV)

This should be nothing new to these Pharisees, scribes and teachers of the Law (the same people that are conspiring to have Jesus killed) here as they spent their whole lives studying the Bible.  This is not an isolated teaching in the Old Testament either, I just pulled out one verse that said it quite clearly, but it is said other places that the LORD desires obedience, not sacrifice.  Jesus is saying that the LORD is not pleased with all these offerings that they bring of their heart is not right with Him.  They should have given all that was required of the Law by first giving themselves to the LORD.  Note that Jesus is clear here that He is not telling them to cease their giving in the tithes and offerings that they make, but they should give cheerfully and not simply out of a duty or obligation that they think they are checking a box that will somehow earn them brownie points with God.  Many "Christians" today still need to learn this lesson.

​Jesus focuses on another tradition of theirs to talk about needing to give God what belongs to Him from their soul.  While the people were required to give the tithe to the LORD and many sacrifices as well, they were also required to help any neighbor who was in need and there are many people that would sit near the temple to beg because they had no other way to support themselves or their families.  They are said to be asking for alms.  That is what Jesus is making reference to here because these right Pharisees would make quite a show of how much money they would give to the poor, yet they will not give the LORD their hearts.  Giving alms would not buy their way into heaven, only giving their whole selves--body, mind, and spirit to the LORD would be enough to ensure that they would be seen as clean and righteous before the LORD on the Day of Judgment.

Jesus adds that they are condemned because they are self-centered (not just self-righteous) requiring that others give them the best seat in the house of worship (the synagogue) and in the marketplace.  They make people focus on them instead of on God.  They do not see themselves as equals with everyone else in the eyes of God, but they see themselves to be lifted up as examples for others to follow.

Jesus says that in doing so they make people unknowingly become unclean just like if people walked over an unmarked grave.  You may not know that this is why we have marked graves, but it's because the LORD commanded the people to avoid contact with dead bodies and if they did have contact with a dead body they were considered unclean for a period of time and had to live outside the populated areas until their period of isolation was over.  But what if you unknowingly came in contact with a grave because it wasn't marked?  That wouldn't exempt you from the Law.  Jesus says other places that the Pharisees have hearts that are like white-washed tombs that look clean on the outside but are full of death, decay and skeletons on the inside.  So, when the people follow after these Pharisees and come in close contact with them, their unclean spirits are making the others that touch them and come in contact with them unclean as well (because they are spreading their perverted view of what true worship of God and true religion is to the people, and the other people are falling in line with them as they lead the people on the path to death and destruction thinking they are on the way of eternal life).

Then one of the teachers of the law made a statement about how Jesus offended them also (as if Jesus cared about that).  Jesus then decided to tell the people what He thought about these "lawyers"--the scribes and teachers of the Law and interpreting it for the people, making their traditions and interpretations equal with the letter of the Law (this sounds much like our Supreme Court today, but I digress).  They put heavy burdens of extra rules on the people, but they themselves imagine themselves to be above the Law (no one is allowed to question them and there no court in the land that can touch them because they are members of the highest court in the land).  While the people imagine these religious leaders to be above reproach, they are as guilty, maybe even more guilty, than those they condemn.

Jesus tells these lawyers that they are guilty of the sins of their forefathers (because they are about to do the same thing to Jesus), not just killing the prophets God sent, but they dug their graves to prepare for the people to kill the prophets.  They stood there as witnesses to the murders as the people killed the LORD's messengers and gave their approval (we'll see an example of this in the book of Acts at the stoning of Stephen as Saul stands by and gives his approval of the actions of the people who are stoning Stephen to death).  Jesus says that all these crimes against the prophets will come to rest on this generation--the one that would kill Him because all the prophets were prophesying about His coming and so they will show that they would have killed all the prophets if they were willing to kill the One they were prophesying about.  Jesus even goes so far as to take them all the way back to the first murder every committed by Cain against his brother Abel and said that even that sin would be held against them, all the way until the time of Zechariah, the last prophet of the Old Testament that is recorded as being executed by the people in 2 Chronicles 24:20-21.  Jesus even reminds them of the context of Zechariah's death because he was standing between the sanctuary and the altar of the LORD pleading with the people to repent and to stop breaking the Law of the LORD, and telling them they could not prosper if they disobeyed the LORD and that because of their rebellion that the LORD had forsaken them.  They refused to hear this and by the king's command, the people stoned Him in the courtyard of the Temple--the very place where sacrifices were made for atonement unto the LORD.

Jesus condemns the lawyers for taking away the key to the people's knowledge and understanding of the Law and they themselves do not possesses the key.  All they can show the people is a locked door that they do not know how to open.  What is this key that Jesus is referring to?  It is Himself.  The whole Old Testament is about His gospel--the good news that He was coming to bring His people out of their slavery to sin and make them His people called by His name and to make an eternal, unbreakable covenant of grace with them.  To turn them into the kingdom of priests that He called them to be in Exodus 19, and to give them new and clean hearts like was promised in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and that David cried out for in Psalm 51.  They would return from Exile and He would be their God and they would be His people, and He would save a remnant from among all the nations, and all His people from all the nations would come together and gather in worship of Him.  How do understand the Bible without understanding that Christ is the main character?  He is the Creator, the Law Giver, the Law Keeper, and the one who is the Judge of the righteous and the unrighteous.  He is the one who would pay the penalty for our sins so that we could be brought from death to life, and His gospel is not about making bad people good, but about making dead people alive.  All this can be found in the Old Testament from the very beginning.  Even in Genesis most of these things are established and so we long for the coming of the promised one that would crush the head of the serpent since Genesis 3.  These men who made it their life's work to study the Bible and teach it to others missed the main point though.  How sad that they led so many others astray by a false gospel of works-based salvation that so many others fall into believing today as well.  So then they also hindered those who were trying to enter by the narrow gate and were on their way to righteousness that comes by God through faith.

After this they are really mad at Him and begin to intentionally antagonize Him more than they have done in the past and they will intentionally try to trap Him at every opportunity.  We'll see that they are willing to make alliances that they normally would not make for no other reason than "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."  They will begin conspiring with both the Sadducees and the Herodians (both of them were non-religious and got along with each other, because all they wanted was money and power).  Watch out for these kinds of people that seem to be religious but have no interest in repentance and they hate the messengers of God who bring the true gospel.  They will hate you and maybe even want to kill you just like they hated and wanted to kill Jesus and the prophets before Him.