In those [times], the myriads of the crowd being gathered together, so that they trod one on another, he began to say to his disciples first, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy;
The Lord had just been exposing the Pharisees. Now He turns to a crowd so packed that people were trampling each other. His first word to His disciples is not encouragement. It is a warning about something small enough to hide and strong enough to spread.
The size of the crowd matters. One writer notes that a crowd like this is just when the Lord's warning voice would be heard.
The crowds are pressing after Him, so that they tread on one another. It was at just such times that the Lord's warning voice was almost sure to be heard. It broke the spell of that attractive influence which apparent popularity so often had over the minds of His real followers. The crowds were under the control of the Pharisees, as we know, and their showy religiousness helped to keep them there.
The Lord speaks to His disciples first. Another writer points to what the Pharisees were after.
We have seen that their careful outward formality only covered up inward evil. Why? Because their aim was to impress the crowd. How great a danger this is even for true disciples! We like the recognition of others and forget to seek only the approval of God. Let us not let numbers sway us. Let us remember always that God searches the motives of our hearts.
Leaven is yeast. A little of it, stirred into dough, works through the whole batch. The image says something about how this sin behaves.
It really is a "leaven" — a kind of evil which, if it is not judged, ferments and grows. The hypocrite aims to keep things covered from God first, and then from the eyes of other people. But everything is coming into the light, so in the long run hypocrisy is useless. Still, while it lasts, it is fatal to any dealing the soul has with God. So, morally speaking, the warning against it has to come first.
The Lord names other leavens elsewhere, and each one has its own flavour:
"Beware of the leaven of the Sadducees" (Matthew 16:6) — that is unbelief; "Beware of the leaven of… Herod" (Mark 8:15) — that is worldliness. Herod represents the political element. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (1 Cor. 5:6) would speak of evil practice. Again "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Gal. 5:9) would refer to evil doctrine.
The verse names the leaven: hypocrisy. One writer explains what a hypocrite does.
The hypocrite tries to hide something from the eyes of others by putting on a false appearance. He wears a costume that is not really his. He pretends to be what he is not. To God that is hateful. Sooner or later hypocrisy loses its mask, and everyone sees it in its true character.
Among believers it rarely looks like open fraud. It takes a more respectable shape:
He warns our souls against being unreal — seeming to be what we are not. We have to watch against hypocrisy. It often takes a falsely spiritual form, that is, the desire to seem more spiritual than we are.
Hypocrisy also fails at what it sets out to do, because nothing stays hidden.
Every man will find his level, and every thought will come to light. What the truth would do now, the judgment seat will do then. The light shining from the judgment seat of Christ will unmask every grade and shade of hypocrisy. Nothing will escape. All will be reality then, though there is so much falseness now. And everything will get its proper name then, though people give it the wrong name now.
Another writer adds that faith does not wait for that day:
Even now God is forming souls in the light, and that light puts them to the test. It is His own moral nature, which detects everything that does not match it… The Pharisees were marked by a fair appearance before men, which was hypocrisy in the sight of God. The Lord warned the crowd that an end was coming to all this. The day of judgment will make it plain, but faith looks ahead to that day now.
One writer turns the warning on those who have broken with the world:
Perhaps we are fairly free from the world and its institutions. We are outwardly separate, and we find our friends among those who call on the name of the Lord. If so, the most subtle danger we face is the leaven of the Pharisees. How easily we lose the reality of God's presence! With that goes the sense of our own nothingness, and then the sense of His grace, which is the only ground we can stand on. So our standard of holiness and righteousness drops. Instead of judging ourselves, we become content with ourselves. We rest in what we are, or think we are, instead of in what Christ is.
- Leaven spreads. Hypocrisy is not a fixed flaw but a ferment; left unjudged it works through the whole life.
- Leaven hides. The hypocrite's aim is to cover things — first from God, then from people — by wearing a character that is not his.
- Leaven is timed. The Lord warns when the crowd is largest. Applause is when disciples most want to seem more than they are.
- Leaven is futile. Everything covered will be revealed. The judgment seat will give each thing its proper name.
- Leaven is answered by light. Faith does not wait for that day — it lives in God's light now, and reality replaces appearance.
but there is nothing covered up which shall not be revealed, nor secret that shall not be known;
A huge crowd presses around the Lord, packed so tight that people tread on one another. He turns first to His disciples and warns them about the leaven of the Pharisees. This verse is the reason He gives: nothing stays hidden, and everything comes into the open.
One writer explains what the Lord meant by leaven, and why the pretence cannot last:
The Lord explains what He meant here by leaven. It was hypocrisy. The hypocrite tries to hide something from the eyes of others by putting on a false appearance. He comes dressed in clothes that are not really his. He pretends to be what he is not. To God that is hateful. Sooner or later hypocrisy loses its mask, and everyone sees it in its true character.
An earlier verse in Luke sounds almost the same. The same writer shows why the two are not making the same point:
The reader will no doubt remember what is said in Luke 8:17. But the statements are not the same. There the Lord is encouraging the disciples to be faithful in service, and to profit by His teaching. Here He is warning against hypocrisy. So in 8:17 we have, "Take care then how you hear." Here we read, "whatever you have said." Keep these two words in mind — hear, and said — and you have the clue to the two passages.
Hypocrisy He cures by telling them that everything is going to come out. That is the beginning of the chapter. Everything is going to come out, so I had better be transparent now. I may wear a cloak before men, but God will take that cloak off sooner or later.
One writer sees more here than a warning about personal honesty. He sees a new kind of testimony taking shape:
Another writer sets this verse inside three principles that hold together:
Three great principles are presented here. First, the great general truth: man can keep nothing secret, though it may seem so, and he can hide nothing. All must be in the light. God must have the upper hand, and light will prevail. Second, we are to give an account of ourselves to God. Third, we are not to fear the secret plots of men. We are to fear God and bear witness according to the light given to us.
This exposure has a day attached to it. One writer describes what that day will show:
We are all very careful to put our best side out, and we guard the rottenness inside from public view… In that day every person will appear just as he is. He will not be at his best or at his worst, but in his true nature and character. No one will add anything to decorate him, and no one will take anything away to degrade him.
The principle works both ways. If nothing evil stays buried, neither does God's hidden work in a person:
One day all our ways will be revealed, and the hidden purposes of the heart made known. If there is nothing in us now that will not come out then, God's own workings declare themselves too. If He converts a soul or visits a heart, making the soil good in any of us, we can be sure that such a work is meant to show itself. His tilled ground shall bear fruit "of itself."
- Leaven — the Lord names it Himself: hypocrisy, pretending to be what you are not, which God finds hateful.
- Futility — the mask is temporary. Everything comes out anyway, so the only sane course is to be open now.
- Light — the new testimony is not governed by law but by the light of God, and in that light God lays the heart bare.
- Fear — because God will have the upper hand, we answer to Him and need not dread what people plot in secret.
- Fruit — the same rule that exposes hidden evil guarantees that God's hidden work in a soul will show itself.
therefore whatever ye have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light, and what ye have spoken in the ear in chambers shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.
Luke 12 opens with a crowd so large that people tread on one another. The Lord warns His disciples about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and verse 3 says why: every secret comes out in the end.
The verse begins with "therefore," tying it back to the leaven the Lord had just named. One writer names the hypocrite's aim in order — God first, then people:
He warned them against the hypocrisy which He had just been unmasking in the Pharisees. It is indeed a "leaven"; that is, a type of evil which, if unjudged, ferments and grows. The hypocrite aims at having things "covered" from God in the first place, and then from the eyes of his fellows. Everything however is coming into the light, so that in the long run hypocrisy is futile.
The last phrase was not a figure of speech to the Lord's first hearers. Flat roofs were where public news was announced:
Around the courtyard are entrances to more private rooms, where the household eats, and to chambers where they rest... The Lord speaks of the disciples announcing from the housetop what He had told them in private (Matthew 10:27; Luke 12:3). You can often see this way of announcing news in the East, where the public crier calls out from the housetop the information he has to make known.
Luke records a similar saying earlier, in 8:17. The two are not the same, and the difference turns on one verb:
The reader will doubtless recall what is said in 8:17. But the statements are not the same. There the Lord is encouraging the disciples to be faithful in service, and to profit by His teaching. Here He is warning against hypocrisy. So in 8:17 we have, "Take heed how you hear." Here we read, "whatever you have said."
The light that exposes the hypocrite also sends a message out. What the Lord says to a few is meant to be spread everywhere.
We find the Lord showing that a new testimony was to be formed, not governed by law, but by the light of God. And this testimony, as it was in the light, so also it was to be spread abroad. There was to be nothing hidden, nothing kept silent now. The teaching of the Apostle Paul agrees with this. Now that Israel has been rejected, God has brought to light the "mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations, but is now revealed to his saints" (Colossians 1:26).
If everything comes out in the end, there is no point in managing appearances. One writer draws the practical result:
Then He adds that everything is to come out. But the light has come in now, and what an upright Christian delights in is the light of God. He does not wait for the judgment seat of Christ to declare his motives... A Christian should be perfectly transparent. If not, he is unlike Christ. You may read me through and through, says Paul; I have nothing to conceal, all is out now.
This warning reaches far past the disciples. Right now, no one can see inside another person's life.
We know very little about one another... no other human being knows all that a man knows about himself. We are all very careful to put our best side out, and we keep the rottenness inside hidden from public view... In that day every man will appear just as he is, neither at his best nor at his worst, but in his true nature and character. Nothing will be added to decorate him, and nothing taken away to degrade him.
- Covered. Hypocrisy is leaven — it grows if unjudged, and it aims first at hiding things from God, only then from people.
- Uncovered. Nothing stays hidden, so the mask is not just wrong. It is useless. In that day every person appears just as they are.
- Spoken. This test falls on words, not just deeds. Luke 8:17 asks how you hear. This verse asks what you have said.
- Published. The housetop was where a town crier announced news. What the Lord says in private to a few is meant to go out loud to everyone.
- Transparent. The light has already come, so the believer does not wait for the judgment seat to declare his motives. Having nothing to hide is normal Christian life.