Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass the sea and the dry [land] to make one proselyte, and when he is become [such], ye make him twofold more [the] son of hell than yourselves.
The second of the Lord's woes falls on men whose energy no one could question. They crossed sea and dry land for a single convert. What He challenges is not their effort but its result: the convert came out worse than the teacher.
The Lord speaks this woe inside a series of judgments on Israel's religious leaders.
Nothing could be more solemn than this condemnation. The number of woes reminds us of those spoken in Isaiah 5 and 6. It suggests how complete and final was the judgment they had brought on themselves. In general, the woes declare the blindness, hypocrisy and unrelenting hatred of those who posed as the religious models and leaders of the people.
Commentators differ on the count: some read seven woes, some eight. Most of the older manuscripts leave out verse 14. The order follows from verse 13. There they took away the key of knowledge; here they spread what they put in its place.
They had taken away the key of real knowledge. It fitted this perfectly that they should be zealots for their own false knowledge, and eager to win proselytes to it. It fitted just as well that, in the state they were in, their proselytes would go beyond themselves. Calling the light darkness, they naturally called the darkness light, and would spread it as light.
The energy was real. The Lord asks what it produced, and points at the pupils for the answer.
Their zeal to make proselytes was untiring, granted. But what was the fruit in souls before God? Were not the pupils, as usual, the truest index of such teachers? They were more open and unguarded about their ways, their aim and their spirit.
Distance travelled proves nothing on its own.
These people would travel over sea and land to make one proselyte; but what was it all worth if there was no work of grace in the soul?
A proselyte was a Gentile who converted to the Jewish religion. Two things drove the hunt for one: authority and pride.
They tried every means to make even one proselyte, because they wanted their own authority over men. If they could bring a Gentile over to the Jewish religion, this was a great triumph for their pride. Then they made him double the son of hell that they were themselves, propping up men's improper pride in their religious zeal and dignity. Pride is the very thing that drags men down to Gehenna.
The recruiting served a party, and their own religious teachers disliked it.
They were sectarians, and sectarianism is the fruit of the flesh, as the Epistles clearly teach. They did everything to make proselytes, and that too for selfish motives. The rabbinical schools condemned proselytism. One of the talmudic sayings is, "Proselytes are as a scab to Israel."... Is it any different in proselytising Christendom, down to the smallest party?
The word twice is the sting. What passes to the convert is character, not only teaching.
Great zeal for making proselytes marks the Pharisaic mind. The Lord's words in verse 15 expose a remarkable feature of mere proselytism. It reproduces the character of the recruiters in their converts, with added emphasis. The Pharisees were children of hell, and their converts were the same twice over. This is why evil men and deceivers always tend to grow worse and worse, until all is ripe for judgment.
Religion turned to the wrong use does more damage than no religion at all.
False religion deceives, and that is where Satan displays his direct power. God gave that very thing for light and blessing, to win the heart and bring us into fellowship with Himself. The enemy abuses it to make a man worse than ever — twice as much a child of hell as before.
Scripture names people elsewhere by what they belong to.
Scripture speaks of those who refuse the gospel of God's grace as "sons of disobedience". It calls the weeds "sons of the wicked one". And the Lord called the proselytes of the hypocritical Pharisees sons of hell — or rather, "of Gehenna". All of them show by their ways what they are, and where they are going.
The pattern outlives the Pharisees wherever the goal is the group rather than the soul.
The activity and zeal will be for the system. It will be to make proselytes, and to establish them in whatever will keep them there — not to save souls or lead them on in Christ... The views that mark out that institution will matter most, not what saves.
- Zeal — The Pharisees' effort was tireless; the Lord never denies it. He asks only what it produced in souls before God.
- Motive — The drive was pride and party: authority over men, and a convert to their own sect.
- Transfer — The convert copies the recruiter's character, only stronger. Pupils are the truest index of their teachers.
- Result — Not a neutral outcome but a doubled one: light misused makes a man worse than he was, "twice as much a child of hell."
- Test — Ask of any religious work what the Lord asked here: does it save souls and lead them on in Christ, or only tie them to a system?
Woe to you, blind guides, who say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor.
The third "woe" in this chapter turns from what the religious leaders did to what they taught. Jesus gives them a name that sticks: blind guides. Their rule about oaths sounds like careful religious detail. He treats it as proof that they could no longer tell what mattered from what did not.
The name is a verdict, and it settles the fate of everyone walking behind them.
What could they be but blind guides at best, as the Lord said to them (Matt. 23:16-17, 26)? And if the blind led the blind, what could they do but both fall into the ditch (Matt. 15:14)? And that sad result is just what happened when the chief priests persuaded the people to ask for Barabbas and crucify Jesus.
Swearing by the temple was ordinary speech back then. The teachers had built a ranking system around which phrases counted, and an oath on the temple itself ranked as nothing.
The Jews loved to swear on every possible occasion to stress their words. They used all kinds of impressive phrases for it. They swore by heaven, by the earth, by Jerusalem, by the temple, and so on. The scribes clearly thought that only an oath that named God out loud was a "real" oath. Only that kind bound the person who swore it. On top of that they made further distinctions between the temple and the gold of the temple, the altar and the gift on the altar (Matt. 23:16-22). The Jews hardly counted it a sin to swear careless oaths, vows and promises and then break them, as long as no one named God.
Their ranking put the gold above the temple. That choice showed what they valued.
It was clear that in the eyes of these proud and foolish men the gold was worth more than the house in which God dwelt. The gold that decorated the temple had a value beyond its market price for one reason only: it formed part of the house God was pleased to own as His.
Their distinction had a practical use. It handed people a way out of their own words.
The third woe again shows how their reversal of the true proportion of holy things darkened the light in them. They rated the gold of the temple above the temple itself, and the gift above the altar that sanctified it. Then they used this hair-splitting to teach men how to swear empty oaths and escape responsibility — a responsibility the Lord affirms in every case.
The Lord's argument rests on a principle they had lost. The smaller thing gets its worth from the greater thing it belongs to. One writer follows that principle to the altar and the gift laid on it.
They degraded the basic truth of the altar, while treating the gift on it as too sacred to swear by. Yet the altar speaks of the person of Christ, who sanctifies the gift, and the gift speaks of His sacrifice. His sacrifice is certainly precious, but He Himself is greater than His sacrifice.
To people who are not thinking, teaching like this looks like depth.
They drew distinctions between the temple and the gold of the temple, and between the altar and the gift on it. People who did not think might look at them in awe, as men with very superior minds. In reality their distinctions were made up. They only proved their own blindness and folly... They were blind indeed, and that type of blindness is all too common today.
A bad leader does not excuse the one who chose to follow him.
The "blind" here are the Jewish leaders first of all, no doubt. But the follower will not escape the ditch just by being a follower. The truth speaks for itself to anyone who has ears to hear. Anyone who hands himself over completely to another man's leadership has his conscience before man, not before God.
- Blind — the Lord's own name for these guides. What they taught came straight out of their blindness.
- Blind to value — they rated the gold above the temple. The gold was only worth anything because it belonged to God's house.
- Blind to Christ — the altar sanctifies the gift. The altar speaks of Christ Himself, and He is greater than His sacrifice.
- Blind by design — their system taught men how to swear empty oaths and dodge responsibility, but the Lord holds them to every oath.
- Blindness spreads — leader and led fall into the same ditch. The follower has no excuse: truth speaks for itself to anyone with ears to hear.