And one of the doctors of the law answering says to him, Teacher, in saying these things thou insultest us also.
Jesus is at dinner in a Pharisee's house, and He has just rebuked the religious pride and hypocrisy He found there. Now an expert in the law objects that the rebuke lands on his own group too — and what he gets back is not a softer word, but more.
The man who interrupts is not a courtroom attorney but a religious specialist. One reference work sums up both the job and the harm these men did:
A teacher of the law, one who expounded the law. Nicodemus was probably one, since the Lord called him a "teacher of Israel." The Lord said the lawyers put heavy burdens on others, but did not touch those burdens themselves. As they explained the law, they took away the key of knowledge. They did not go in themselves, and they stopped those who were going in — a solemn description that may, sadly, apply to some today.
These men saw themselves as the official interpreters of the law, and some were Pharisees too:
Scribes and lawyers were closely linked. Scribes began as simple writers, then in effect became theologians. In time they handled Israel's law from a judge's point of view, and so became lawyers, and sometimes doctors of the law (as Gamaliel was — Acts 5:34). So they considered themselves the authoritative interpreters of the law. They could be Pharisees at the same time — a double evil!
The lawyer breaks in because he felt the words hit home. One writer pictures the whole scene as light at work on darkness:
When He enters the house, He goes on acting as the Great Teacher, rebuking the religious pride and dark hypocrisy He found there. Then a lawyer who was present feels the righteous rebukes and interrupts Him: "Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also." But the light stays faithful to its work. It keeps showing up the darkness around it, until the darkness shows its hatred in full.
The lawyer may have hoped for a softer word. He got the opposite:
If this lawyer thought the Lord would retract or modify His words out of deference to lawyers, he was mistaken. In fact, the Lord added three "woes" for lawyers also.
The objection did not turn the charge aside:
At this point one of the doctors of the law protested that these words were also an insult to such as himself. This only led to the indictment being more closely pressed home against himself.
One commentator sets their habit of burdening others against what Christ does:
They were notorious for their contempt of the very people from whom they derived their importance. It is an easy thing to lay burdens upon others; it is hard to bear them. Christianity is the exact opposite of this. Christ comes down first of all and takes the heaviest burden of all: the judgment of our sin and guilt, our condemnation from God. Then He leaves us under the Gospel, without that burden… Only grace enables a person to show what the law calls for. The doctors of the law were the very ones who showed the least conscience. They thundered the law at others, but they did not submit to any of its commands themselves, except where it suited them.
The woes that follow are more than scolding. They mark out a road, and name where it ends:
To one of the lawyers who complained that He was reproaching them too, the Lord speaks woe upon woe for them as well. Tampering with the law and the holy things of God, where there is no faith, is the direct road to ruin. It is certain to bring God's judgment.
- Light — the Lord's teaching works like light in that room. The lawyer's interruption proves it reached him, and the light kept shining.
- Stung — he felt the rebuke, and complained of insult instead of taking it to heart. His objection was self-defence, not self-judgment.
- Pressed — the protest wins no retraction. It only draws the charge closer, with three woes added for the lawyers themselves.
- Burdens — their trade was loading others with what they would not touch. Christ is the reverse. He carried the heaviest burden, the judgment of our sin, and leaves us free under the gospel.
- Ruin — handling God's law and holy things without faith is the straight road to ruin. The woes name where that road ends.
And he said, To you also woe, doctors of the law, for ye lay upon men burdens heavy to bear, and yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
At the Pharisee's dinner table the Lord has just spoken sharply about the religion of His host's circle. One of the experts in the law protests that the words insult his group too — so Jesus answers with a woe on the teachers themselves.
These were not lawyers in the modern sense. They were the recognised experts on the law of Moses.
Scribes and lawyers were closely linked. Scribes began as writers, then became theologians. In time they handled Israel's law as judges, and so became lawyers and sometimes teachers of the law. They therefore saw themselves as the authoritative interpreters of the law... They were not concerned to obey the law. They saw themselves as enforcers of it on other people. So they heaped heavy burdens on the people but never lifted a finger to help carry them. Too often the man who is strict in his teaching is loose in his own example.
The lawyer spoke up for his profession. It did him no good.
At this point one of the teachers of the law protested that these words insulted men like him too. That only made the Lord press the charge home against him all the harder. These teachers of the law kept busy laying burdens on others. They made laws for other people, and calmly ignored the law themselves.
The word for "burdens" here does not mean a crushing weight in itself. It is the same word Jesus uses for His own burden.
Two Greek words are both translated 'burden.' With the first, baros, the burden is always heavy and crushing. With the second, phortion, the idea is that it has to be carried — like freight or baggage — though it need not be heavy. The burden the Jewish leaders laid on others was heavy (Matthew 23:4; Luke 11:46). But it may also be light, as the Lord says: "my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30).
So the crushing weight came from the men who piled it on, and from their refusal to carry any of it.
The motive was not zeal. Loading others was how they kept their standing.
We have another mark of false religion. Religion is turned into a law, and then imposed on its unsuspecting followers just as those who profit from it please. In this way they keep up their own standing and authority, while they submit to nothing of the kind themselves. This is one of the marks of how wilful and hopeless the evil is, and to such men God says: "Woe."
Christ did the exact opposite of what these men did.
It is an easy thing to lay burdens on others. It is hard to bear them. Christianity is the exact opposite of this. Christ comes down first of all and takes the hardest burden of all — the judgment of our sin and guilt, our condemnation from God. Then He leaves us under the gospel, without that burden... So the practical exercise of Christianity is in liberty and joy. No doubt grace brings the highest obligations with it. But they are the obligations of men who are free, and who use their freedom for the One whom they love. It was not so with these teachers of the law... Only grace enables a person to show what the law requires.
The lawyers would not touch the load. Christ carries it, and He tells His people to carry one another's.
They laid heavy burdens on the shoulders of men, loads hard to bear. But in Matthew 11 we have read of One whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. Those who bear His yoke find He bears their burdens for them. That is the law of Christ. He was the burden-bearer all through His life — not the bearer of our sins then, but of our sorrows. On the cross, and there only, He bore our sins. "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." We fulfill the law of Christ when we bear one another's burdens.
- Burden laid. The lawyers were the recognised interpreters of the law of Moses. They enforced it on others and excused themselves.
- Burden defined. "Burden" here means a load to be carried, not a crushing weight in itself. The crushing weight came from the men who imposed it.
- Burden's motive. Making rules for others while staying free of them is a mark of false religion. It keeps the rule-makers in authority.
- Burden borne. Christ did the reverse. He took the heaviest load — the judgment of our sin — and leaves His people in liberty and joy.
- Burden shared. Those who wear His easy yoke find He carries their load, and they fulfill His law by carrying one another's.
Woe unto you, for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, but your fathers killed them.
The Lord is at a meal in a Pharisee's house. One of the experts in the law has just complained that His words insult them too. He answers with a series of woes. This one lands on something that looked like devotion: building tombs for the prophets their own ancestors had killed.
The charge falls on the men who studied and taught the law for a living. They also led the building of these memorials.
The second woe (v. 47) came because the lawyers led the way in raising monuments on the graves of the prophets. They knew the history of these men. Israel's leaders had often put them to death. These leaders hated the prophets while they were alive, then flattered them once they were dead! The Lord spoke of this as a witness to the fact that they were guilty of the murder of the prophets — that is, they were glad the prophets were dead! In practical character they were the very sons of those who had killed them.
At first this seems backwards. Building a tomb looks like the opposite of murder. The link lies in what the builders wanted out of it.
At first it may not be clear why building the tombs showed approval of those who killed the prophets. But the builders took up the killers' place, as it were. In it they sought their own honour instead of receiving the testimony of the prophets. That testimony would have humbled them in the very dust over the moral and utter ruin of the nation. Instead they decorated the tombs of all that was good in the nation, as if all was well. Holy fear at the prophets' rebuke would never have adorned the prophets' tombs.
Another writer names the shared motive that runs from the fathers to the sons.
This sounded well and holy. What could look more praiseworthy than honouring the sufferers and prophets of old by building their tombs? It was really the spirit of the world. First, they proved that they were the successors of those who killed them — not the heirs of the martyrs but of their murderers... They would love the halo around those men of God to shine on themselves. The love of the world made the fathers kill them. The same love of the world led their sons to build these tombs over them.
The honour was safe. A prophet in his grave no longer says anything uncomfortable.
They were also marked by their rejection of God's word and of the prophets who brought it. Yet once the prophets were dead, they honoured them by building their tombs. In this way they hoped to gain the prestige of their names, now that the prophets' words no longer tested them. A cunning device, that! But one not unknown even in our day. It is easy to praise a man to the skies a century after his death — a man people would have fought hard against while he was giving his testimony.
The men honouring dead prophets stood in front of a living one. The One speaking the woe was the Witness all the prophets had pointed to.
They showed much regard and outward reverence for the memory of the prophets, who had suffered for their testimony at the hands of their forefathers. They built their tombs and honoured these dead and silent witnesses. Meanwhile the same spirit they condemned in their fathers was about to show itself in an even more blatant way. It would appear in how they treated the living Witness then among them, the One all the prophets had testified about.
The principle reaches beyond that generation. It shows up wherever people honour God's servants of the past and refuse His testimony in the present.
The successors of those who suffered for God long ago are those who suffer now. The heirs of their persecutors may build them tombs, put up statues, cast memorial plaques, and pay them every honour imaginable. The testimony of God that pierces the hard heart may be gone, and those who gave it may no longer be there. Then the names of these departed saints or prophets become a means of gaining religious reputation for themselves.
- Builders. The teachers of the law led the tomb-building. They honoured in death the very men earlier leaders had killed — flattery for prophets they would have hated alive.
- Motive. They built for their own honour, not out of repentance. Real fear at the prophets' rebuke would never have decorated those graves.
- Kinship. Love of the world made the fathers kill the prophets. The same love made the sons build their monuments. That marks them heirs of the murderers, not of the martyrs.
- Safety. A dead prophet no longer tests anyone by his words, so people can praise his name at no cost — a device still in use today.
- Test. They honoured silent witnesses while the living Witness stood in front of them. The same spirit they condemned in their fathers was about to turn on Him.
Ye bear witness then, and consent to the works of your fathers; for *they* killed them, and *ye* build [their sepulchres].
Jesus is confronting the religious teachers of Israel. He takes something that looked holy — building tombs for the prophets — and calls it proof that these men stand with the killers, not the killed.
Building tombs for the martyred prophets looked respectable. That is what made it useful to the men who did it:
This sounded well and holy. What could look more admirable than honouring the ancient sufferers and prophets by building their tombs? It was really the spirit of the world. First of all they proved that they were the successors of those who killed them. They followed the murderers, not the martyrs. It seemed the opposite of what their fathers had done. Yet it was the same love of the world. That love killed the martyrs in that day, and now it led men to build their tombs to make religious capital out of this pious honour. They would like the glory that surrounded those men of God to shine on themselves.
Why should decorating a grave amount to agreeing with the murder?
It might not appear at first why building the tombs showed approval of those who killed them. But they took up their place, as it were. In it they sought their own honour instead of receiving the testimony of the prophets. That testimony would have humbled them into the dust over the moral and utter ruin of the nation. Instead they decorated the tombs of all that was good in the nation, as if all were well. Holy fear at the prophets' rebuke would never have decorated the prophets' tombs. It was the spirit of this world.
The word "consent" is the sharp edge of the verse. Another commentator finds that consent in how these men treated the prophets' words:
They built their tombs. This was a witness that they were the children of those who had killed them. All the while they consented to the deeds of their fathers: they professed to honour the prophets, yet paid no attention to their rebukes. Their fathers' sins they proclaimed by building the tombs. Their fathers' guilt they consented to, since they did not listen to the teaching of the prophets. In practice they refused the prophets' claim to have been divine messengers. So in effect they justified their fathers' deeds in killing them.
A prophet in his grave makes no demands. That is the quiet advantage these men were taking, and it is a habit that outlives them:
One thing marked them: they rejected God's word and the prophets who brought it. Yet once the prophets were dead, they honoured them by building their tombs. In this way they hoped to gain the prestige of those names, now that the prophets' words no longer tested them. A clever trick, that! But one not unknown even in our day. It is easy to praise a man to the skies a century after his death. The same man would have met fierce opposition while he was still testifying.
That generation kept the same attitude. So God laid the whole record of shed blood at its door:
Then He announced a principle that most people find unacceptable. They either ignore it or fight it hard. The principle is this: God would require the blood of all the prophets of the past from the present generation... The reason is this. The generation He spoke to kept the same attitude of refusal toward the testimony of God. They soon proved it in the murder of the Lord Jesus, and of various apostles later.
One grave was placed beyond the reach of such honours — that of Moses, the leader who brought Israel out of Egypt:
We can see the divine wisdom in burying Moses and hiding his burial place. Those people were far from valuing that blessed servant of God as they should while he was alive to speak and act for his Master. And the Lord has Himself warned us about the same spirit of unbelief. It killed the prophet and the righteous man, who did not spare their sins. Then it built and decorated their tombs once they were gone.
- Appearance — Tomb-building looked like reverence. It was "really the spirit of the world" — a way of borrowing the martyrs' glory.
- Consent — The consent lay in the refusal. Honouring the prophets while ignoring their rebukes justified, in effect, the fathers who killed them.
- Self-witness — By building the tombs, they named their own family line. Their monuments spoke against them.
- Cost — A dead prophet makes no demands. Praise costs nothing a century later, though the same man would have met fierce opposition while he spoke.
- Reckoning — The same refusal continued, so God required the blood of all the prophets from that generation. They proved it soon after in the murder of the Lord Himself.
For this reason also the wisdom of God has said, I will send to them prophets and apostles, and of these shall they kill and drive out by persecution,
The Lord is at a meal, and He has just told the religious teachers that their tomb-building for the murdered prophets shows whose children they are. He then quotes "the wisdom of God," which raises two questions: who is this Wisdom that speaks, and why is sending more messengers a proof of guilt instead of a cure for it?
The verse gives the words a speaker: wisdom. One commentator compares this with the way wisdom speaks in Proverbs.
"The wisdom of God," the Lord had said. This is the only place in the New Testament where wisdom speaks. The wording He used fits the moment. Wisdom speaks in the Old Testament (Prov. 8) to warn men, so that the simple should understand wisdom, and the fools might have an understanding heart. Wisdom speaks in the New Testament (Luke 11:49) to announce that warning fools is now hopeless, and that judgment is therefore certain.
But wisdom here is not just an idea. It says "I," and one commentator asks who that "I" is.
Some say we cannot apply abstract principles to Divine Persons, but Luke 11:49 clearly disproves this: "Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles.'" Here we have a divine Person speaking... God has made divine wisdom available to us in Christ, as we read, "And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God" (1 Cor. 1:30).
The verse opens with a "therefore" that points back to the tomb-building. What looked like reverence for dead prophets was the same instinct that had killed them.
What could be more praiseworthy than that they should honour the ancient sufferers and prophets by building their tombs? It was really the spirit of the world. First of all they proved that they were the successors of those who killed them — not the successors of the martyrs, but of their murderers... It was the love of the world that made the fathers kill them; and it was the love of the world that led their sons to build these tombs over them.
The verse names two kinds of messengers. One commentator ties both to the mission of the New Testament, not to Israel's past.
He judges the condition of the nation and the hypocrisy of its pretended righteousness... He announces the mission of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament. Rejecting them would fill up the measure of Israel's sin. It would be the final test for the hypocrites who built the tombs of the prophets their fathers had killed. God had been patient over all that blood. He kept sending testimonies to give the people light, and the blood was shed because of those testimonies. At last He would require it from the rebels.
Kelly asks why the saying is credited to God's wisdom and not to human insight.
It is expressly called the wisdom of God, because it is not what would appear to man... God would test them soon by sending prophets and apostles, some of whom they would kill, and some they would persecute, getting rid of them all in one way or another.
God knows the outcome before the messengers leave. He sends them anyway, and that does not soften the guilt of the people who reject them.
He knew that they would reject the prophets and messengers by whom He spoke to them, and offered them forgiveness and mercy if they would only repent. (See Ezek. 3:7-9.) Still, He sent them, rising early to send them again and again. Was their responsibility lessened by God's foreknowledge of the way they would treat the messengers of His mercy? Surely not.
The warning was not about some distant generation. It landed on the men in the room.
The Lord's words imply that what their fathers had done would be done again by the sons. The generation He spoke to were guilty not only of the blood of the former prophets, but of the Son of God Himself.
Kelly sees the same pattern in a day still to come. Knowing the history in advance makes the guilt worse, not lighter.
There will be a violent outbreak against the witnesses of Jesus. Their blood will be shed like water. This persecution is all the more guilty because men will have known about it beforehand. They will have admitted the guilt of those who did it, and yet they will fall into the same rut themselves. Sadly, unbelief is most of all blind to itself.
- Wisdom speaks. This is the only place in the New Testament where wisdom speaks. In Proverbs it spoke to warn the simple. Here it says that warning is now hopeless.
- Wisdom is a Person. The "I" who sends is a Person, not just a quality. Commentators point to Christ, who became wisdom from God to us.
- Wisdom sends. He sends prophets and apostles, the messengers of the New Testament. They are the final test for men who honour dead prophets and reject living ones.
- Wisdom foreknows. He knows their fate before they go, and He still sends them. His foreknowledge never lowers the guilt of those who reject His messengers.
- Wisdom is refused. Honouring the martyrs of a past age costs nothing. The real test is the messenger speaking now. Unbelief is blindest about itself.
that the blood of all the prophets which has been poured out from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation,
Jesus is at a Pharisee's table, and His last words to the religious experts stop rebuking and pass sentence: centuries of murdered messengers now count against this generation. That raises the hardest question here — how can one generation answer for blood spilled long before it was born?
The sentence follows a charge about tomb-building. The men who built those tombs thought it proved they were nothing like their fathers.
They built the tombs of the prophets. This sounded good and holy. What could look better than honouring the prophets and sufferers of old by building their tombs? It was really the spirit of the world. First, they proved whose successors they were — not the martyrs' but their murderers'. It seemed the opposite of what their fathers had done. Yet the same love of the world was at work. It killed the martyrs back then, and now it led men to build their tombs, to make religious capital out of this pious honour.
The verse before names the speaker as the wisdom of God. That title appears elsewhere in Scripture, but with a different purpose.
"The wisdom of God," the Lord had said. Here only in the New Testament is wisdom said to speak. The title fitted the moment. Wisdom speaks in the Old Testament (Proverbs 8) to warn men, so that the simple would understand wisdom and the foolish would gain an understanding heart. Wisdom speaks in the New Testament (Luke 11:49) to say that warning fools is now hopeless, and that the coming judgment is therefore certain.
The verse dates the account from the world's beginning. Scripture uses that same starting line elsewhere.
Scripture often mentions the "foundation of the world" as the far border-line of the past. Human history is counted "from" that point (Matthew 13:35; Matthew 25:34; Luke 11:50; Hebrews 4:3; Revelation 13:8).
The next verse fixes the two ends of the account — Abel and Zechariah. One writer notes how hard this sits with readers, and gives the reason behind it.
Then He announced a principle that most people find unacceptable. They either ignore it or fight it hard. That principle is that the blood of all the prophets of the past would be required of the present generation; to leave no doubt, He speaks of the blood of Abel, whom Cain killed, and down to Zechariah, who was killed while doing his priestly service for God (2 Chronicles 24:20-21). The reason is that this generation kept the same attitude of refusal towards the testimony of God. They soon proved it by murdering the Lord Jesus, and various apostles later.
God had let the account run for ages. What closed it was the end of every appeal. The reckoning falls on the nation as a whole, not in place of each person's own judgment.
All the blood which had been shed since the blood of righteous Abel had to be required of that generation. God had not required it before. He had enlightened them by His law, stirred them up by His prophets, warned them through discipline, and appealed to their whole moral being by sending His Son. The sins of the fathers should have warned the children to avoid the same offences. The children sinned after them, so they sinned in the light. But they persisted… This still leaves each of their fathers facing the consequences of his own sin at the judgment of the dead. But the nation — the system as a whole, the public object of God's government in the world — has been judged.
Commentators differ over how closely the word ties to the people alive at that time. One reading takes it as a moral description, not a date.
The true force is "this (Christ-rejecting, unbelieving) generation of Israel." It does not mean only the people alive then. It means all who bore the same moral fruits as those who refused the Messiah… Israel stood in the place of witness for God. So they suffered for despising His last testimony to them in Christ, and God required of them all the righteous blood shed from the beginning onwards. The same principle applies to Babylon in Revelation: "in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth."
The same principle can run again. Men who condemn past persecutors are not safe from copying them.
In the last days there will be a violent outbreak against the witnesses of Jesus. Their blood will be shed like water. The persecution will be all the more guilty because men will have known about it beforehand. They will have admitted the guilt of those who did it, and yet they will fall into the same rut themselves. Sadly, unbelief is most of all blind to itself.
- Pretence — They built tombs for dead prophets and fought the living ones. That marked them as successors of the murderers, not of the martyrs.
- Patience — God waited long. He gave the law, the prophets, His discipline, and at last His own Son.
- Wisdom — Wisdom speaks once in the New Testament. It does not warn now; it announces certain judgment.
- Reckoning — The account runs from the world's foundation, from Abel to Zechariah. It falls on the nation as God's public witness.
- Repetition — The same principle falls on Babylon, and guilt is heaviest where men knew the crime beforehand.
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias, who perished between the altar and the house; yea, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.
Here the Lord draws a line across the whole of Israel's history. It runs from the first murder in Genesis to a killing in the temple courts. Then He places the bill for all of it on the people standing in front of Him.
The two names are not a random pair. They mark the first and last pages of Israel's Bible, whose books stood in a different order from ours.
2 Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Bible. So this would have amounted to saying: the blood of all the martyrs in your history, from Genesis to 2 Chronicles, will be required of this generation. We would say, from Genesis to Revelation, without even settling the date of that last book. The martyrs from Genesis to Chronicles were all the martyrs killed by Jewish hatred of the truth. The Lord does not date their martyrdom by naming this one the last of the martyrs.
Commentators differ. Some take him as the priest killed by the king's order, recorded in 2 Chronicles 24.
This probably refers to Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, who was killed in this way by order of the king (2 Chronicles 24:20-22). In one of those places "son" may mean "grandson." The book of Chronicles closes the Hebrew Bible, so the murder of this righteous man may well be counted the last, as Abel's was the first.
Others take him as Zechariah the prophet. They point to what the place of the murder says about the killers.
In this case the martyr seems to have been doing actual priestly service. He was the grandson of Iddo, of the priestly family (Zechariah 1:1; Nehemiah 12:1-4), and they killed him between the temple and the altar. This shows the cold-blooded ruthlessness of his attackers. They had no regard for God's glory symbolised in the temple and the altar.
The charge sounds unfair until you see how much light that generation had received. God had been patient for centuries, and every fresh warning made the refusal of it heavier.
All the blood which had been shed since the blood of righteous Abel had to be required of that generation. God had not required it before. He had enlightened them by His law, stirred them up by His prophets, warned them by chastisements, and appealed to their whole moral being by sending His Son. The very sins of the fathers should have warned their children to avoid the same offences. Coming after those sins, the children's offences were committed in the light. But they persisted in them, and so heaped up wrath for the day of judgment.
They had built tombs for the murdered prophets, which looked like reverence. Behind both the killing and the monument stood the same motive.
They proved that they were the successors of those who killed them — not the successors of the martyrs, but of their murderers. It seemed the opposite of what their fathers had done. Yet it was the same love of the world. That love killed the martyrs in that day, and now led men to build their tombs to make religious capital out of this pious honour. They would gladly have the halo surrounding those men of God shine on themselves.
The Lord repeats the sentence rather than softening it. That opening word is not a filler.
It affirms firmly when a matter might seem to be in doubt. Or it repeats something as a certainty that cannot fail, as in Luke 11:51.
What made the certainty so plain was the direction that generation was already travelling.
That principle is that the blood of all the prophets of the past would be required of the present generation... The reason is simply that this generation He spoke to kept the same attitude of refusal towards the testimony of God, which they very soon proved in the murder of the Lord Jesus and of various apostles later.
This is not only about Israel. One generation can take on the guilt of the ones before it, and Christians are warned too.
In the sight of God, one generation inherits all the iniquity that the generations before it completed. That iniquity ought to warn their conscience... If Christians are not fully separated from Babylon, they inherit the iniquity of the earlier times. They join themselves with it, and their conscience learns nothing from it. When man has used up one principle, God sets another before him to work on his conscience. If he rejects that too, he is so much the more guilty.
- First blood. Abel opens the account — the first righteous man killed, and the start of a record God kept for centuries.
- Last blood. Zechariah closes it, because Chronicles ends the Hebrew Bible. Commentators differ over which Zechariah, but the sweep runs from Genesis to the last page.
- Light refused. God did not present the bill earlier. Law, prophets, chastisements and then His Son: each new light made the refusal a heavier sin.
- Same spirit. Building tombs for murdered prophets was no break with the murderers. The same love of the world drove both the killing and the monument.
- Bill presented. "Yes, I tell you" is not emphasis for its own sake. It marks a certainty that cannot fail. The principle still reaches every generation that inherits privilege and learns nothing from it.
Woe unto you, the doctors of the law, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge; yourselves have not entered in, and those who were entering in ye have hindered.
Jesus ends a series of woes with a charge against Israel's professional teachers of the law. They held the key that opens the door to God, and they took it away — so what is that key, and can the same thing happen today?
These men were not lawyers in today's courtroom sense. They were the recognised experts in the law of Moses.
Scribes and lawyers were closely linked. Scribes started out as writers, then in practice became theologians. Later they took up Israel's law as a legal matter. So they became lawyers, and sometimes doctors of the law (as Gamaliel was — Acts 5:34). They therefore considered themselves the authoritative interpreters of the law.
The key is not a secret teaching. Commentators identify it with Scripture itself. The abuse of it is the claim to be the only people qualified to explain it.
I have understood the "key of knowledge" to be the Word of God itself. The lawyers got that name because they claimed skill in the law of Moses. They acted much as any group of men who take that role as a profession are sure to act. They claimed to be the authoritative explainers of the Word, and claimed that right for themselves alone. To keep that place, they deny that others, untrained and not professional, have any ability to understand it without their teaching. So in the end they withdraw the Word from ordinary people.
Nobody stole a book. They removed direct access — the Word reaching a person's own conscience without needing anyone's permission.
Here is the next mark of hypocritical, systematic religion. They pretended to explain the law and to be the men who apply it to others. So they deprived the very people the law was meant for: that convincing, knowledge-giving word never reached their hearts and consciences directly. They took away the key of knowledge, so that people could not go in for themselves without their leave and their opening of the door. In the end they did not go in themselves. They used their right to teach only as a right to stop others entering into the knowledge of what God has set before men in this word. By this word He reveals His grace and makes men responsible.
Their failure was not a lack of material. Everything they claimed to teach about was standing in front of them.
The Lord pronounces one more woe on the doctors of the law. They were doing then what others are doing at this present time. Wisdom was there, truth was there, Christ was there. All the doctors of the law did was hinder people from profiting by it, to keep up their own importance.
Blocking others was not an accident. Keeping people uninformed protected their standing.
The Lord's final woe to lawyers is because they had taken away the key of knowledge. They did not enter the kingdom themselves. They claimed to be wise, and used their intellect to obscure real knowledge. So they also hindered others from entering the kingdom. They kept others in ignorance so that people would count them wise!
Matthew records a matching woe: the scribes shut the kingdom of heaven against people. Luke shows how they did it, and what it costs.
Few can dispute that the keys are for admission. The proper use of a key is to open. In Matt. 23:13 the Lord charges the scribes with shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men. In Luke 11:52 He shows how they did it: "you have taken away the key of knowledge." The kingdom springs out of the sowing of the seed of the Word, so knowledge must be one key to it. Taking it away must prevent discipleship.
The verse is a warning. But it has a bright side: the key the lawyers took away is now in the hands of God's people.
How highly favoured are God's people today! They have the key of knowledge in Christ, and it opens to them all the great treasures of the Old Testament and the New. God has revealed Himself in the Son. And in the mystery of God, which centres in the Son of God, "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" are hidden (Col. 2:3).
- Key — commentators take the key of knowledge to be the Word of God itself, and a key exists to open a door.
- Taken — not by theft but by monopoly. They claimed to be the only competent interpreters, and so withdrew the Word from ordinary people.
- Empty — Christ, wisdom and truth stood right in front of them. The teachers stayed outside, because their own importance mattered more.
- Blocked — keeping others ignorant was the point. An ignorant crowd kept the experts looking wise, and it stopped people becoming disciples.
- Given back — God has now given what they removed. The key of knowledge is Christ Himself, and in Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.