But the Lord said to him, Now do ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but your inward [parts] are full of plunder and wickedness.
A Pharisee invites the Lord to dinner and is shocked that He eats without the ritual hand-washing first. Jesus turns the question of cleansing back on the Pharisees and moves it from the hands to the heart.
The Lord has just spoken about light and how people receive it. What follows at the table is not a debate about hygiene but an exposure.
Suppose the people would not receive the light for their own blessing. Even then, the Lord would turn the searchlight of truth on their state. He began with the Pharisees, and the rest of the chapter gives us His indictment of them. The Pharisee who invited Him was true to type: a critic, obsessed with ceremonial details. The hour had struck for the critic to be criticized and exposed. Nothing could be more trenchant than the Lord's words. As we read them we may form some idea of how men will be searched in the day of judgment.
The host's surprise gave away more than he knew.
When He went into the tax collector's house, the wonder was how He could eat with sinners. The wonder with the Pharisee now is that He had not washed first, before dinner. Such was their religion. Yet the truth, on the face of it, is that washing is for those who are unclean: He who was pure and holy did not need it. So the Pharisee condemns himself twice over. There is a vague awareness that he needed cleansing. He also shows his blindness to the personal glory of the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the only One who needed nothing from outside — the Holy One of Israel, the Holy One of God.
The cup and the dish make the picture exact.
Their hypocrisy is the point of verses 39-41. Showy cleanliness where the eyes of men reach, filthiness where they do not. And beyond that, fierce self-seeking lay under their apparent piety. They were full of "ravening" or "plunder." The word "give" in verse 41 stands in contrast to this. What if they became givers instead of plundering other people? Then all things would be clean to them, inside as well as outside. Such a radical change as that would mean true conversion.
The Lord names two evils inside them. One concerns other people; the other concerns God.
It was tragically true of the Pharisees in general. They were eager to clean the outside of the cup and platter. Inside, they held thoughts of cruelty and greed toward the people, and of wickedness toward God.
Their reputation did not shield them.
They had the highest reputation among the people. Yet the Lord calls them fools. What His word condemns now, His judgment will act on later. The judgment of God is always according to the word of God.
Their whole system treats God as if He made only surfaces.
To the Pharisee the Lord's words denounce the self-righteousness that was their most obvious feature. It failed by being all outside. It was as if God had made the body but not the soul — the form, without ever breathing the spirit into it. This produced excessive fussiness. Instead, let them be ready to give to the needs of others, and everything else would be clean to them.
The danger did not die with the Pharisees.
This kind of thing has always been a great snare to the professed people of God. It came to a head in the Pharisees when our Lord was on earth. He aimed His most searching words of condemnation at such people. It is very common today... Let every reader of these lines, and the writer too, beware of it. Spiritual pretension is a special snare to those who are well taught in the things of God. They know the right and fitting and even beautiful thing to say. They may claim much without any heart or reality in it.
- Outside — They kept clean where people can see and filthy where they cannot. The cup shines; the contents rot.
- Inside — Greed and wickedness meant cruelty and grasping toward people, and wickedness toward God. All of it hid under a high reputation.
- Folly — Caring only for the outside treats God as if He made the form and never breathed in the spirit. The Maker of the outside made the inside too.
- Cure — The opposite of plundering is giving. Such a change would mean true conversion.
- Us — Spiritual pretension traps those who know the right and beautiful thing to say. They can claim it all with no heart in it.
Fools, has not he who has made the outside made the inside also?
At a Pharisee's dinner table, the Lord answers His host's surprise at unwashed hands by turning the subject from dishes to hearts. His question points back to the truth His host had forgotten: the same God made the outside and the inside.
The Lord accepted the invitation and sat down without the customary washing, and His host was startled. Commentators note that the host's surprise exposed him twice over.
When He went into the tax collector's house, people wondered how He could eat with sinners. With the Pharisee, the wonder is that He did not first wash before dinner. That was their religion. Yet the plain truth is that washing is for people who are unclean. He was pure and holy, so He did not need it. The Pharisee therefore condemns himself twice over. He shows a vague sense that he himself needed cleansing. He shows too his blindness to the personal glory of the Lord Jesus, the only One Who needed nothing from outside Himself — the Holy One of Israel, the Holy One of God.
The word "fools" is not anger. It names a failure to think.
It was sadly true of the Pharisees as a whole that they worked hard to clean the outside of the cup and the dish. Inside, their thoughts were cruel and greedy toward the people, and wicked toward God. They were foolish, and blind because they chose to be. They did not consider that the God who made the outward form of things also made what is inside, and that He saw every inner motive. Yet they thought that giving to the poor would wash away every moral evil.
Their practice implied a strange doctrine of creation. Writers put the absurdity sharply: their religion behaved as though God's workmanship stopped at the skin.
To the Pharisee, the Lord's words condemn the self-righteousness that was their leading trait. It failed because it stayed on the outside, as if God had made the body and not the soul — the form, but had not breathed the spirit into it. Instead of the fussy care this bred, let them simply be ready to give to others in need, and everything else would be clean to them.
This is not the fault of one group in one time. Outward religion attracts because it is easy and it shows.
Outward things are easy to do. Man likes to make his religion out of them, because they do not need a pure heart. He likes to do them, to lift himself up, and to set himself apart from other people by doing them. Through them he boasts of great godliness before other men, and wins a great reputation for it. But he can be bad at the same time. These outward acts do not bring him into the presence of God, who searches the heart. By such acts a man is religious without having holiness, and he finds that this suits him. Pharisees are not found only in our Lord's time. They are found in every age.
Being called a fool by Jesus while the crowds called them holy is not a small thing. His words today are the standard of His judgment tomorrow.
They had the highest reputation among the people, yet the Lord calls them fools. What His Word blames now, His judgment will act on later. God always judges according to His own Word. What His Word condemns now, the Lord Jesus will condemn when He takes the throne of judgment. But the same God made both the outside and the inside. They had forgotten Him. They cared only about what men could see. The Lord looks on the heart.
The next verse gives the cure, and it is not more scrubbing. It reverses the greed that filled the inside.
Their hypocrisy is the point of verses 39-41. Showy cleanness where the eyes of men reach, filth where they do not. On top of that, a fierce self-seeking lay under their apparent godliness. They were full of "plunder." The word "give" in verse 41 stands in contrast with this. If only they became givers instead of plundering other people, all things would be clean to them, inside as well as outside. So deep a change would mean true conversion.
- One Maker. God formed the outside and the inside. A religion that polishes only what people can see acts as if He made the body and not the soul.
- One folly. They had the highest reputation among the people, yet He called them fools. They forgot the One who made both and looks on the heart.
- One appeal. Washing is for the unclean. The host's surprise showed a vague sense of his own need, and blindness to the One who needed no cleansing.
- One attraction. Outward acts are easy and they win a reputation. They never bring a man into the presence of the God who searches the heart.
- One cure. Not more scrubbing, but becoming a giver instead of a plunderer. That change goes deep enough to mean true conversion, and then all things are clean.
But rather give alms of what ye have, and behold, all things are clean to you.
The Lord is eating at a Pharisee's table, and His host is amazed that He sat down without the ritual hand-washing. Verse 41 is His answer — stop scrubbing the outside and give — but what are the "things that are within," and how could giving make everything clean?
The complaint about unwashed hands exposed the host more than the guest.
When He went into the tax collector's house, the wonder was how He could eat with sinners. The wonder with the Pharisee now is "that He had not first washed before dinner." Such was their religion. Yet the truth, on the face of things, is that washing is for those who are unclean: He who was pure and holy did not need it. So the Pharisee condemns himself twice over. There is a vague awareness that he needed cleansing. He also shows his blindness to the personal glory of the Lord Jesus, the only One who needed nothing from outside.
The Lord calls them fools, and the reason is His own creatorship of what no one sees.
Their self-righteousness failed because it was all outward. It was as if God had made the body and not the soul — the form, but had not breathed the spirit into it. Instead of the excessive fussiness this produced, let them only be ready to give to the needs of others, and everything else would be clean to them.
Their outward polish covered a habit of taking from other people.
Their hypocrisy is the point of verses 39-41. Showy cleanliness where the eyes of men reach, filthiness where they do not. And more than that, fierce self-seeking lay under their apparent piety. They were full of "ravening," or plunder. The word "give" in verse 41 is set against this. If only they became givers instead of plundering other people, everything would be clean to them, inside as well as outside. Such a radical change as that would mean real conversion.
The Greek phrase behind "the things that are within" has been read in more than one way, and commentators differ.
"What you have" — the Greek word enonta — is how Godet and Bishop Basil Jones take it. Wordsworth explains it as "hearts." The Revised Version text makes the word mean souls; its margin takes it as the contents of the cups.
The older translation read "give alms of such things as ye have." The ESV takes the other line: "those things that are within." Either way the practical point holds. Let what is inside come out to others in need.
Some read the verse as though charity could buy pardon. The Pharisees assumed the same.
They were foolish and willingly blind. They did not consider that the God who made the outward form of things also made what was inward. He saw every inward motive. Yet they thought the giving of alms would wash away every moral evil.
Later teachers put the same idea into plainer words, and this writer answers them:
The way of salvation was sadly clouded by statements like these: "By prayer, the mercy of God is sought; by fasting, the desires of the flesh are quenched; by almsgiving, our sins are paid for." Sad, that anyone could be called a champion of the truth who could put out errors like these!
The Lord's command struck this group at its weakest point.
The Lord Jesus tells them instead to "give alms of what you have: and behold, all things are clean to you." He knew well that this was the last thing a Pharisee would do. Intense selfishness marked the whole party. They were faithless and greedy. They despised the One God gave; what they had they kept for themselves. So all things were unclean to them.
Something must first change a heart that is closed in on itself:
It is only in the presence of God, only as we take in His love, that our hearts grow large... We are no longer cramped, able to think only of ourselves. We come out as givers, like God in this famine-stricken world.
- Inside made — God formed the hidden part as well as the visible one. Religion that polishes only the outside treats Him as the maker of the body but not the soul.
- Inside full — plunder and wickedness filled these men. Their careful washing sat on top of greed.
- Inside given — "give" is the reverse of "plunder." The Lord asks for the one thing selfishness holds back.
- Inside clean — such a change would mean real conversion, not a fee paid. Commentators call the idea that alms cancel sins a serious error.
- Inside enlarged — time in God's love makes a person a giver. Giving is the proof of a clean heart, never the price of one.
But woe unto you, Pharisees, for ye pay tithes of mint and rue and every herb, and pass by the judgment and the love of God these ye ought to have done, and not have left those aside.
Jesus is eating at a Pharisee's table, and He turns on the religious leaders with a run of woes. The first falls on men who tithed garden herbs while the great duties of the law slid past — so what did they miss, and why does He still tell them to tithe?
This rebuke does not stand alone. Jesus aims woe after woe at the Pharisees and the lawyers eating with Him.
Six Woes. — And now, at that Pharisee's festive table, the Lord spoke about the hollow profession of both Pharisees and lawyers. Three woes were aimed especially at the former, and three at the latter. The former, precise and showy in performing small duties, neglected the weightier matters of judgment and the love of God (v. 42). To give tithes was right, but judgment (see Psalm 37:30-31) and the love of God should not be overlooked.
Mint and rue cost almost nothing. So why did the Pharisees make so much of them?
It was really the same root of self, fallen human nature under a religious veil. Why did they seek to be marked out from others in this way? Others gave tithes honestly due to God; the Pharisees seized on the tiniest points, which did not cost much, and gave themselves credit in the eyes of men no wiser than themselves, but they slighted judgment and the love of God. Righteousness is a proper sense of our relationship to God and to man; of this they had no adequate measure before them at all. The love of God was the last thing that came before their hearts or out of them.
Older translations read "judgment" where the ESV has "justice." It means honest discernment of good and evil. And the love they passed by is the same love that gave them the law.
The Lord pronounced a solemn woe on the Pharisees, for they were strictly careful to tithe the smallest things, extremely meticulous in certain details, while ignoring honest judgment of good and evil, and ignoring the love of God. In fact it was God's love that gave the law in the first place, to reach men's consciences and hearts through their inability to keep it.
Jesus could have told them to drop the herb tithes. He does the opposite. The small duties stay, but they must not crowd out the large ones.
Honest self-judgment and appreciation of the love of God were the two matters they should have positively regarded, while not leaving the other matters undone — that is, neither making small things an issue nor ignoring them.
Why is this swap so common? The flesh can manage outward acts. It cannot produce a pure heart.
The first ground of condemnation is putting outward washings and services, which the flesh can perform, in place of purity of heart and the spirit of love: where these last are present, external things are clean. So money fills the heart where there is only a religious form, because money stands for the world; and wanting to be first is another expression of the same thing.
Another writer traces the failure to a false picture of God Himself:
This failed in its externalism, as if God had made the body and not the soul — the form, but had not breathed the spirit into it.
Hole sees the same failure wherever religion is only outward form.
Verse 42 points out their distorted judgment. They specialised in things that were neither important nor costly, and ignored things of the greatest weight… A terrible charge indeed, but one that sadly applies in varying measure at all times to those who represent a merely outward and ceremonial religion.
- Weight — The charge is misweighing, not miscounting. They kept the duties that cost little and ignored the ones that carry the greatest weight.
- Cost — Herb tithes were cheap and easy to see. Self-love picks the duties that win credit from others, under a religious veil.
- Judgment — The first thing they passed by was honest discernment of good and evil. Kelly calls it a proper sense of our relationship to God and to man.
- Love — The second was the love of God. That love gave the law in the first place. Yet it was the last thing to come out of their hearts.
- Both — Christ's remedy keeps both halves. Do not make small things an issue, and do not ignore them. Outward acts the flesh can perform must never replace purity of heart.