Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within they are full of rapine and intemperance.
The Lord is partway through a series of "woes" spoken over the religious leaders of Israel. Here He picks a picture from an ordinary kitchen. A cup is scrubbed on the outside while what is inside stays foul. Can a life kept clean for public view ever satisfy the God who sees inside it?
Two words carry the charge: "greed and self-indulgence" (older translations read "extortion and excess"). One appetite reaches for what belongs to other people. The other reaches for its own pleasure. A spotless religious surface hid both.
The fifth woe rebukes the Pharisees for a purity that was only on the outside. They kept the correct forms of religion, while inside they were full of extortion and excess. They dealt dishonestly with others and gave themselves to lustful self-indulgence. So He tells them to clean the inside of the cup and dish first, since that matters most. Then He adds, "that the outside also may be clean." He does not mean that washing the inside of a cup makes its outside clean. He means that a clean outside follows when a person cleanses his inner motives. True spiritual cleansing inside will have a proper result outside.
The problem was not one bad habit. It ran through the whole system these men had built.
Whatever they claimed, their religion was a religion of the outside. Far from being clean, they were full of plunder and wickedness — they plundered others and were wicked themselves… They had forgotten Him. They cared only about what men could see. The Lord looks upon the heart. They did not think of this. Unbelief is always blind. Where things differ in importance, it fixes on the least important. The reason is clear: it seeks the praise of men and not that of God.
The clean outside was not just a failure to deal with the inside. It worked in the inside's favour.
They cleansed the cup and dish on the outside. Inside they could keep them full of plunder and indulgence. With a correct outside, they kept the lusts within and approved them.
A well-kept surface can satisfy an audience. The question is what God makes of it.
Is this going to satisfy God? He is not deceived. It deeply offends God when someone indulges evil in the heart and keeps a fair exterior. There is no real happiness apart from holiness… But we need to be holy inside. The word of God is our standard for judging everything… If the word of Christ lives in us richly, we should be quick to judge an evil thought. Believers know so little of spiritual joy because they leave these things unjudged.
This habit is not limited to one group. It grows where inward life is fading.
A soul that has drifted from God often keeps up the outward forms of religion, sometimes with even more zeal. As life decays, attention turns to rites and ceremonies. The soul deceives itself this way and slides into ignorance of its real condition. It loses all sense of its relationship with God and leans on performing the required ceremonies exactly. The Pharisees, for example, took great care to clean the outside of the cup and the dish. They were completely indifferent about being cleansed inside.
Behind the habit sits a hope: that a clean surface will make the heart clean, and that God will accept the result.
He hopes that cleaning the outside of the cup will make the inside clean. He wants to be "not like other men," to stand out by some superior religiousness and good works, and by these things make himself acceptable to God.
The rules the Pharisees loved could reach the rim of a cup and no further.
In the law there were many ceremonial defilements, each with its appointed purification. The scribes and Pharisees added more, such as washing the hands before eating, and washing cups and plates (Mark 7:2-8). They were very zealous about these things, while inside they were full of extortion and excess. In Christianity the purification required extends further: to the heart (Acts 15:9; James 4:8), to the soul (1 Peter 1:22), and to the conscience through the blood of Christ (Hebrews 9:14).
- Outside — They kept the correct forms of religion. The clean surface covered dishonest dealing with others and self-indulgence.
- Inside — The clean surface did more than leave the evil alone. It kept the lusts within and approved them.
- Deceived — Appearances satisfy onlookers. God is not deceived, and a fair exterior over an indulged heart offends Him.
- Decay — Zeal for forms rises as inward life falls. The soul then slides into ignorance of its true condition.
- Cleansed — The Lord's order is inside first. Real cleansing reaches heart, soul and conscience through the blood of Christ, and then shows on the outside.
Blind Pharisee, make clean first the inside of the cup and of the dish, that their outside also may become clean.
The fifth of the Lord's woes ends not with an accusation but with an instruction: start at the other end. He calls the man blind, tells him what to clean first, and adds a promise: deal with the inside, and the outside will follow.
The Pharisees were not careless. Their care ran the wrong way, and the Lord turns the order around.
The fifth woe condemns the outward purity the Pharisees put on. They kept up correct, formal religion, while inside they were full of extortion and excess — dishonest dealings with others, and lustful self-indulgence. So He tells them to clean the inside of the cup and plate first, which is by far the most important; but He adds, "that the outside also may be clean." He does not mean that literally washing the inside of a cup will make the outside clean. He means that a clean outside follows when a person cleanses his inner motives. True spiritual cleansing inwardly will have a proper outward result.
Cleaning only the outside of a vessel is not just incomplete work. It protects what is inside from any real change.
They cleaned the cup and dish on the outside; inside they could keep them full of plunder and self-indulgence. With a correct outside, they held on to the lusts within and approved them.
The concern behind it is how a man looks to others.
Next He exposes their effort to look right on the outside, whatever the impurity within. This showed in their work, and in their own lives and persons, which were full of deceit and self-will.
Washing the rim of a cup does nothing to the water it holds. The same holds in a person: the outside only shows what the heart is already producing.
The Pharisees made the outside of the cup and plate clean, but that did not cleanse the inside. What comes from within is what defiles a man. The stream was bitter because the fountain was bitter; and the fruit was bad because the tree was bad. The fountain of a man's defilement lies in his own heart. Going through a religious ritual could be of no value. Doing that alone only made men hypocrites. The Pharisees could wear an appearance of holiness and goodness like an outer garment — and they had — while the seat of the disease stayed untouched.
A clean outside may satisfy onlookers. God is another matter.
Is this going to satisfy God? He is not deceived. Giving in to evil in the heart while keeping a fair outside offends God deeply. There is no real happiness apart from holiness. God was living among them, so He required holiness. But we need to be holy inside, and we have the word of God as our standard to judge everything by.
Since the trouble is inside, the cure cannot be a change of clothes.
The cleansing is not an outward change, as a Pharisee might cover the blackest of hearts with a white robe and blue fringe; but an inward work that truly judges evil and forms new desires. The man must be born again.
Where faith is real, the cleansing reaches both sides of the vessel. That is the promise in the second half of the verse.
This faith cleanses within; it makes the inside of the cup and plate clean. It also beautifies the outside; it makes the outward conduct and the inner motive clean. So the man, if his faith is true and real, becomes from then on a different man from what he was before.
A dish exists to be used. That is where this lands for the reader today.
You and I — and we want to make this practical — would rather drink from a clean penny clay mug than from a filthy gold goblet covered with diamonds. So we get in 2 Timothy 2, "If anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel... useful to the master of the house." There is something very blessed in this. I, a poor weak thing, yet He will stoop to use me if I am clean!
- Blindness. The Pharisees kept the outside correct while they held on to the lusts within. It was a double life, with the polished surface guarding the filth it hid.
- Fountain. Scrubbing the rim never reached the water. The stream was bitter because the fountain was bitter, and outward religion left the seat of the disease untouched.
- First. The Lord's word "first" turns the order around. Cleanse the inner motives, and a proper outward result follows.
- Inside. That inner cleansing is not a white robe over a black heart. It is an inward work that judges evil and forms new desires. The man must be born again.
- Useful. A clean penny mug beats a filthy jewelled goblet: the clean vessel is the one the Master will use.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like whited sepulchres, which appear beautiful outwardly, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
Jesus is partway through a series of woes against the religious leaders of Israel, and this one moves from what they did to what they were. He points to a grave: bright on the outside, full of death inside.
Each woe cuts deeper than the last. One writer places this one in the series:
In the third woe, He had condemned their corrupt teaching. Here, in the fourth, He condemns their corrupt practice, and, in the next, we get, under a correct exterior, the corrupt affections of the natural heart. Again, they were more anxious to appear right before men than to be right before God. It was outward paint to cover inward pollution. The grass grown green on the sides of the volcano, snow lying white on a manure heap.
The verse says the inside is full of uncleanness. Another writer names what filled it:
They worked hard at outward cleanness, while they were full of robbery and excess. If they could only look righteous on the outside, they were not afraid to be full of hypocrisy and lawlessness within.
A whitewashed tomb holds a corpse, not just dirt. Israel had plenty of religious activity. One writer describes what the Lord saw under it:
This could not deceive the eyes of the Holy One who searches the heart. There was much outward religion: a careful round of fasting, of tithing, of holy days. But in all of it there was nothing for God, no fruit of divine life. There was good reason to call the Pharisees, the religious and orthodox leaders, "whitewashed tombs" (Matt. 23:27) and unmarked "graves" (Luke 11:44) — homes of death, like the body when the spirit has left it.
People choose outward religion for a reason. It costs them no change of heart, and it pays well in reputation:
Outward things are easy to do. Man likes to make his religion of them, because they do not need a pure heart. He likes to do them, to exalt himself, and to set himself apart from others in doing them. By them man boasts of great piety in front of other men, and gains 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 these acts man is religious without possessing holiness, and he finds that this just suits him. Pharisees did not exist only in our Lord's time; they are found in every age.
This danger is not only for the Pharisees. One writer turns the warning toward believers:
A grave might be walked over without anyone knowing it. The grave is a heart that chooses to hide its inner corruption beneath a fair exterior. Such were the Pharisees whom the Lord blamed. And what crowds of God's children meet such graves in daily life! They accept the principles of the world's religion, and settle for a religion of forms that the state of their heart in no way matches. Sad to say, a grave may defile a Christian. He may also be, in this sense, a hypocrite himself.
The remedy is not a fresh coat of paint. One writer met the same excuse in the form of church membership:
A lady in Florida told me the other day that a man could live in drunkenness and immorality — anything he liked — if only he belonged to a church. That whitewashes him. But remember, to whitewash is not to wash white. People whitewashed the tombs of the dead, and they still do it today in a moral sense. But only the blood of Jesus washes white — yes, whiter than snow.
- Paint. This woe hits religion built for men to see: outward paint over inward pollution, snow lying white on a manure heap.
- Death. Behind the paint is a corpse, not just dirt: careful fasting, tithing and holy days, with no fruit of divine life in any of it.
- Appeal. Outward religion is popular because it costs no purity of heart and wins a name among men. It never brings anyone into God's presence.
- Contagion. A grave defiles those who touch it. A believer who settles for a religion of forms can become such a grave himself.
- Cleansing. To whitewash is not to wash white. Only the blood of Jesus reaches what the outside hides.
Thus also *ye*, outwardly ye appear righteous to men, but within are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Jesus is speaking a series of woes against the scribes and Pharisees. Here He names the charge: the outside looked right to people, while the inside stayed untouched. Two questions follow — what is hypocrisy, and what does God look at?
One writer defines hypocrisy by its two directions at once:
This opens the way for "hypocrisies" — pretending to be what we are not, and pretending not to be what we are. Hypocrisy is the opposite of sincerity. It is simply playing a part in something that is a mere fable, if it is not the most solemn of realities and the most precious. How awful to make the truth of God a man's game for a little while!
The woes come in an order. One writer traces the movement from corrupt teaching, to corrupt practice, to the heart behind both:
In the third woe, He had condemned their corrupt teaching. Here, in the fourth, He condemns their corrupt practice. In the next, we get the corrupt affections of the natural heart under a correct exterior. Again, they were more anxious to appear right before men than to be right before God. It was outward paint to cover inward pollution. Grass growing green on the sides of a volcano; snow lying white on a manure heap.
The tomb picture from the previous verse carries into this one. One writer applies it past the Pharisees, to believers who meet such graves every day:
The Lord uses the picture of a tomb to show the hypocrisy of a heart. It looks pleasant on the outside, while inside it is full of dead men's bones and every kind of uncleanness. The grave is a heart that hides its inner corruption on purpose, under a fair exterior. Such were the Pharisees whom the Lord blamed. And how many of God's children meet such graves in daily life! They take on the principles of the world's religion. They settle for a religion of forms that the state of the heart in no way matches. Sadly, a grave can defile a Christian. He may also be, in this sense, a hypocrite himself. The apostle Paul had avoided such uncleanness. He did not seek the approval of men, but of God. He said, "What we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience." (2 Cor. 5:11.)
The verse says they were full of something. One writer names six of the evils inside, and marks them as sins of the mind rather than of the body:
These six offences — covetousness, deceit, lust, an evil eye, pride, foolishness — are closely tied to the inward workings of the human heart. If the others previously named may be described as the lusts of the flesh, these are the desires of the mind (Eph. 2:3); if they illustrated the filthiness of the flesh, these show the filthiness of the spirit (2 Cor. 7:1). These inward tendencies are the dead bones. They are the uncleanness of the hypocrisy and iniquity inside the whitewashed tombs the Lord spoke of in another place (Matt. 23:27-28).
These men did look righteous. The problem was whose praise they wanted:
The New Testament often describes the Pharisees and scribes as men whose religious activity was only for show (Mark 12:40), done in front of people. They loved and sought the praise of men more than the praise of God (John 5:44; 12:43). Hypocrisy — the effort to appear better than one really is — was the great sin of the Pharisees. This is why the Lord Jesus speaks of the leaven of the Pharisees as of something totally evil (Luke 12:1). Their righteousness was only an outward one and had no value before God.
The remedy is not a better outside:
The outside should be the true sign of the inside. When it is not, we are leavened with Pharisaism — hypocrisy. … Let us be honest with God and ourselves.
Another writer points to where that honesty comes from:
Whenever we are living before men, instead of before God, there will be restlessness and disquiet. There may be the desire to do many things that are written in the word, but they will not be done in quiet and peaceful joy. Nothing keeps us from hypocrisy except living before God. It is the very best possible cure for the excessive conceit that all of us naturally have of ourselves.
- Outside — hypocrisy is playing a part: pretending to be what we are not, and hiding what we are.
- Inside — the bones under the paint come from the heart itself: covetousness, deceit, pride, an evil eye.
- Audience — they wanted praise from men, not from God, so their righteousness was outward only and worth nothing to Him.
- Contagion — a grave defiles those who cross it. A believer can take in a religion of forms and become a hypocrite too.
- Cure — living before God, not before men, is what keeps the outside a true sign of the inside.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets and adorn the tombs of the just,
This "woe" turns on something that looked like piety: careful attention to the graves of the prophets. These men thought their monuments proved they were nothing like their fathers. Jesus says the monuments prove the opposite.
Graves at that time came in more than one form. One reference work describes them:
Some were cut into rock, with a single stone placed or rolled against the opening. The tomb of Lazarus and the tomb of Joseph, where the body of Jesus was laid, were of this kind. Others were called built tombs. An ornamental structure stood over the place where the body lay, like those found in almost every modern cemetery.
It is not obvious why decorating a prophet's grave should count as siding with his killers. One writer points to what the builders got out of it.
They sought their own honour in it instead of receiving the testimony of the prophets. That testimony would have humbled them to the dust over the moral and complete ruin of the nation. Instead they were decorating the tombs of everything 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.
Killing a prophet and honouring a prophet look like opposites. One commentator finds the same root under both.
It seemed the opposite of what their fathers had done. But it was the same love of the world that killed the martyrs in that day, and it now led men to build their tombs to make religious capital out of this pious honour. They would gladly have the halo that surrounded those men of God shine on themselves.
The monuments did place these men in a family line. The timing shows which one.
Their monuments in honour of slain prophets and past heroes were really a testimony to their own relationship — not to the righteous, but to those who murdered them. Their fathers killed the witnesses of God, who condemned them while they lived. The sons only built to their memory once there was no longer a present testimony to their conscience.
Their monuments came with a verdict on the past. One writer notes how comfortable that verdict made them.
They were on very good terms with themselves. They sat in judgment on their forefathers. Yet they inherited the very same character, and they persecuted the Lord of the prophets. You can see they were advertising and commending themselves and condemning their ancestors. It shows their unreality.
The Lord does not leave their claim untested. He would send fresh messengers, and their answer would settle it.
The Lord would bring this fully to the test. He would send them prophets, wise men, and scribes, and they would treat these messengers of the Lord as their fathers had. This was so that upon them might come all the righteous blood shed on earth from Abel down. It is a solemn principle in God's ways: guilt piles up when testimony is rejected, since the conscience becomes more hardened with each act of rejecting it.
The same trap is easy to fall into today.
It is easy to praise a man to the skies a hundred years after his death. The same man would have met fierce opposition during his life of testimony.
Yet remembering faithful servants is not itself the sin. The difference lies in whether their message still has a claim on you.
Scripture does not only allow us to remember those whom God has given as leaders of His people. It commands it. To forget them often means forgetting the truth they brought. That paves the way for that "building the tombs of the prophets" by a godless later generation, one that ignores every warning those prophets spoke. There is a sober, careful way of dwelling on the ministry of faithful servants. It strengthens our own faith, stirs the conscience, and moves us afresh to follow them as they followed Christ.
- Build — these tombs were ornamental structures raised over a grave, like a fine memorial in a cemetery today.
- Boast — the monument was self-promotion. The builders wanted the halo of the prophets to shine on themselves, and they got credit for piety at no cost.
- Betray — the honour came only after the voice fell silent. The real objection was never to the man but to his message, while it still stung the conscience.
- Be tested — Christ answered their claim by sending fresh messengers. How a generation treats living testimony shows which side of the past it stands on.
- Be different — remember faithful servants in a way that stirs your conscience and moves you to follow Christ. Do not file their warnings away as history.
and ye say, If we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
The Lord repeats back to the religious leaders their own favourite line: they would never have shed the prophets' blood. Was that boast self-praise, or was it self-exposure?
They speak as men who are sure they would have done better. One writer notes what that stance revealed.
They were on very good terms with themselves. They sat in judgment on their forefathers. Yet they had inherited the very same character, and they were persecuting the Lord of the prophets. You can see they were advertising and commending themselves and condemning their ancestors. It makes us think of Rom. 2:1... It shows their unreality.
The claim cost them nothing. The men they praised were dead and could not answer back.
Most people seem to like religion in theory, even bad ones. But holiness that is lived and walked out bites. The Pharisees can spend their money on the prophets' tombs, while Christ is scorned and hated. What is the mystery of this? The reason was, these prophets are off the stage and Christ is on.
The same habit is easy to spot outside the first century.
These teachers of the law busied themselves with laying burdens on others... after the prophets had been killed, 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 cunning device, that! But one not unknown even in our day. A century after a man's death it is easy to praise him to the skies. The same man would have met fierce opposition while he was giving his testimony.
If they had meant it, they would have done something other than build monuments. Darby shows why the building gave them away.
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. They sought their own honour in it. They would not receive the testimony of the prophets. That testimony would have humbled them to the dust over the moral and total 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' graves. It was the spirit of this world.
Their honour for the dead prophets was outward only. What they were about to do to the living Christ settled the matter.
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 the dead and silent witnesses. Yet the same spirit they condemned in their fathers was about to show itself in a far more shocking way. It would show in how they treated the living Witness, the One all the prophets had spoken of.
They claimed a past they could not be tested in. One writer shows how their present answered for them.
They would build memorials to them and decorate their graves. They claimed that if they had been alive in those days, they would not have shared in rejecting or murdering the prophets. But they were the sons of these murderers. They had the very same attitude: they still refused the prophets' word while pretending to honour them... They would fill up the measure of their fathers by their rejection and murder of the Lord Jesus.
So what does real faith do instead of building tombs?
Faith does not act by decorating tombs, or by putting up memorial tablets to the holy sufferers of days gone by. Faith walks and suffers reproach, and sometimes worse persecution, in the days that are now. It looks for heaven and glory only when Christ appears. Unbelief does the opposite. It seeks present satisfaction and credit by honouring those who no longer give a living testimony to their consciences.
- Claim. They judge their ancestors and clear themselves in the same breath. One writer calls this unreality and points to Romans 2:1.
- Cost. Honouring a prophet is cheap once he is dead; the words no longer test anyone. Praise given a century late would have been opposition given in time.
- Proof. Real sorrow would have taken the prophets' rebuke to heart. Decorating their graves showed the opposite.
- Verdict. Their own words placed them in the family of the killers, not the martyrs. The same spirit was rising against the living Witness.
- Test. They filled up their fathers' measure by rejecting and killing the Lord Jesus. Faith is tested the same way today — not by monuments, but by bearing reproach now.
So that ye bear witness of yourselves that ye are sons of those who slew the prophets
The Pharisees had just said they would never have joined their fathers in killing the prophets. The Lord takes that very claim and turns it into the charge against them. How can honouring dead prophets prove that you belong with the men who killed them?
The Lord needs no outside witness. Their tombs and their own words convict them.
They would build memorials to them and decorate their graves. They said that if they had been alive when these men lived, they would not have shared in rejecting or murdering the prophets. But they were the sons of these murderers. They had exactly the same attitude: they still refused the prophets' word while pretending to honour them. Their hostility against the Lord Himself was the same as their fathers' hostility against the prophets. Their own attitude was a clear witness against them.
Notice the timing. They praised a prophet only when his words could no longer sting.
In the end, their monuments to murdered prophets and good men of the past pointed instead to who they were truly related to — not to the righteous, but to those who murdered them. Their fathers killed God's witnesses, who condemned them while they lived. The sons only built monuments to their memory once no living voice was left to press their conscience. And their honours to the dead would cast a halo around themselves.
Why should building tombs count as approval of the killing? The answer lies in what they got out of it.
It may not seem clear at first why building the tombs showed approval of those who killed the prophets. But they took up their place, as it were. They sought their own honour in it, instead of receiving the testimony of the prophets. That testimony would have humbled them into the very dust over the moral and complete 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' graves. It was the spirit of this world.
The word "sons" in this verse is not about bloodline records. In Scripture it regularly marks likeness of character.
Sons are those who reproduce the typical or distinctive traits of their fathers. This sense of representing a parent is often used in moral matters. So the "sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2) are those whose conduct displays disobedience as clearly as a son resembles a father.
This likeness is the key to the rest of the chapter.
In verse 31 we get their family character. They fully inherited the place their forefathers occupied. If we don't see that, we cannot understand what follows — that the blood of Abel and the rest was chargeable to them. They inherited the place.
Being a son of murderers is not a harmless label. When a generation learns nothing from the past, it takes on the guilt of the past. This warning reaches beyond Israel.
In the sight of God one generation inherits from the generations before it all the iniquity they completed. Their conscience ought to be warned by that iniquity. "Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers," says the Lord. Christians who are not fully separated from Babylon inherit the iniquity of earlier times. They join themselves to it, and their conscience learns nothing from it.
This verse is not the end of the case. Stephen later carried the same charge further.
Stephen's closing words carry great power. They are like an appendix to the Lord's own words in Matthew 23:31-36. They carry the charge on to its dreadful end: the betrayal and murder of the Just One.
- Self-witness. Their memorials and their own boast about their fathers gave the proof. The Lord needed no other witness.
- Safe honour. They honoured prophets only after the prophets could no longer rebuke them. Praise costs nothing when no living voice troubles the conscience.
- Wrong motive. Building the tombs gained them credit; receiving the message would have humbled them. That choice, not the building itself, aligned them with the killers.
- Family likeness. "Sons" here means shared character, not just ancestry. They inherited their fathers' place, so blood spilled long before could be charged to them.
- Accumulating account. A generation that learns nothing from past guilt inherits it. The same warning stands for anyone who refuses to separate from evil they claim to condemn.
and *ye*, fill ye up the measure of your fathers.
Jesus is speaking to religious leaders who decorate the graves of prophets their own fathers killed. His words sound like an invitation to sin — so what does He mean, and why must one generation answer for centuries of blood?
Their tombs for the prophets looked like honour. Jesus reads them as evidence.
Their monuments honouring murdered prophets and other great men of the past really testified to which family they belonged to. They belonged not with the righteous, but with the men who killed them. Their fathers killed God's witnesses, who condemned them while they were still alive. The sons only built tombs in their memory once no living voice was left to trouble their conscience. And the honours they paid to the dead threw a halo around themselves.
The same instinct lives on wherever people honour a man only once he can no longer disturb them.
It is easy to praise a man to the skies a hundred years after his death, when people would have fought him fiercely during his lifetime of testimony. The Lord's words imply that the sons would do again what their fathers had done.
The command is not encouragement. The Lord is telling them where their own road ends, and what waits at the end of it.
The Lord speaks to the Jews as already guilty. He points back to their earlier acts, and says, "Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers" — so that this blood would come upon them. The words would have no force at all unless He meant a past act that they had not committed themselves. They would deliberately commit acts like it and complete the dreadful series. Then the time of vengeance would arrive. All the piled-up guilt of past ages would bring its piled-up consequences on their head — guilt God had borne with patiently, in case they would repent.
This was not a warning about the distant future.
They testified against themselves that they were children of the men who killed the prophets. So let them fill up the measure of their fathers. They would fill it up and more, as He had already shown them, because these men standing face to face with Him would be His betrayers and murderers.
God had not stayed silent through the centuries. Each fresh warning raised the cost of refusing it.
God had to require of that generation all the blood shed since the blood of righteous Abel. He had not required it before. He had given them light 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 away from the same offences. Coming after their fathers, the children sinned in full light.
This principle can sound harsh. One writer answers with a picture from family life.
Suppose a child has grown up knowing his father's dishonour, and hearing of his disgrace and punishment. Would not that sin look especially hateful to him, if he had any right feeling? The public example of his father's evil ways would always be in front of him. But suppose the son treated it lightly, and used it as encouragement to walk the same path. Is it not just that a still heavier punishment should fall on that son?
The words are terrible, but they do not shut the door.
"Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?" (verses 32, 33). Of course, even in a person like that, if repentance were worked in him there would be mercy. John the Baptist used the same words, "Brood of vipers," about those who came to him for baptism.
This principle is not locked in the past.
In practice, "this generation" still stood identified with their guilty fathers, so they shared the same guilt. We cannot escape this principle: we carry responsibility for what we are identified with, even if much of it happened before our day. So today the church of God on earth bears the shame of many acts of disobedience in the past. We cannot brush this aside.
- Inherit — They built tombs for dead prophets and refused the living witness in front of them. That marked them as sons of the murderers, not of the martyrs.
- Fill — The command is a sentence, not permission. They would finish the series their fathers began.
- Finish — The last act stood right in front of Him. The men He was speaking to became His betrayers and murderers.
- Reckon — Centuries of blood came due on one generation. They sinned in full light, after the law, the prophets, God's warnings and His Son.
- Escape — Even here, mercy stood open where there was repentance. The warning still reaches anyone who holds on to a past he will not judge.
Serpents, offspring of vipers, how should ye escape the judgment of hell?
The woes of Matthew 23 end in a verdict, not an argument. Jesus has already called the scribes and Pharisees blind guides and tombs full of corruption, and now He asks how they expect to escape.
The chapter has moved from debate to courtroom.
The pleadings were now closed — the Jews convicted and silenced. There was no counsellor among them who, when asked, could answer a word. As a religion and a nation, they stood condemned. The Lord then took the place of a judge. He set out the evidence against them and pronounced the solemn sentence.
The viper appears in Scripture for one reason: its bite kills.
All we learn from the passages that speak of the viper is that its bite was poisonous... It is only otherwise referred to in the New Testament as a symbol of evil ones. John the Baptist called the crowd who came to be baptised "a brood of vipers." The Lord uses the same words for the scribes and Pharisees. This shows how deadly their opposition was.
Jesus uses two words, not one, and the second is not a repeat of the first.
He first admits that God gave them their office, but only to expose their unfaithfulness more fully. Then He cries bitter woes on them. He shows that they were not just faithless servants but fierce enemies. They were not simply unreliable guides but false seducers. They were tombs indeed, but tombs full of corruption inside. They were children of those who killed the prophets, but they went further than their fathers. They were offspring of vipers, no doubt, but serpents themselves.
They claimed to stand above the fathers who killed the prophets. Jesus reads their family line differently.
They boast in their own righteousness and religion. They claim to be further on than their fathers, and more tolerant. But the One who knows all things reads their hearts. He declares that they fill up the measure of their fathers. They were unsaved men. They were not the offspring of God but of vipers. Their father was the devil, and they were facing the judgment of Gehenna.
These are the hardest words Jesus ever spoke — and it matters who received them and who never did.
This passage gives us the most terrible denunciation from the lips of Jesus of which we have any record. He never said such things to any poor tax collector or sinner. These hot words were reserved for religious hypocrites. He was full of grace and truth. Grace with truth He extended to the confessed sinners. The searchlight of truth, without mention of grace, was reserved for the hypocrites.
Severity like this is not the opposite of love.
These were scathing words; but if anger dictated a word, it was unselfish and holy. It was indignation at men who sought a religious form to cover their unbelief and wickedness... He called them blind guides, fools, hypocrites, and serpents. Was not the blessed Lord fully justified in His words, overwhelming as they were? It was not enmity to tell a wrongdoer the truth, that he might repent. Flesh hates faithfulness.
The word Jesus uses is Gehenna, and His hearers knew the place He was naming.
Gehenna is the Greek form of two Hebrew words meaning "valley of Hinnom." It was a place near Jerusalem. There the Jews made their children pass through fire to pagan gods. Later the place was left defiled. A fire burned there all the time, which made it a fitting picture of the place of eternal punishment.
Commentators are careful to distinguish this from the state of the dead in general.
The New Testament, and the Lord Himself above all, deepens how the word is used. It no longer means only something seen outside Jerusalem. It means what we in English call Hell. Hell should never be confused with Hades, which refers to departed spirits. No spiritual mind can doubt that He taught its final and everlasting character.
Jesus asks how they will escape. He does not say that no one ever did.
His scathing words, "You serpents, you brood of vipers," ought to have woken some of them up — and may have done. It was a dreadfully serious thing to be counted with the scribes and Pharisees as a class. At least Nicodemus got free of them, and later Paul, so they escaped being sentenced to hell. But the Lord's question was a grave one for those who clung to the pride of their religious standing.
- Verdict. No one can answer Him a word. Jesus speaks here from the place of judgment.
- Venom. A viper's bite is poisonous. They were the offspring of vipers, and by now serpents themselves.
- Parentage. They boasted of better ancestry than their fathers, but the Lord names their real father and their real destination.
- Motive. Jesus kept such words for religious hypocrites, never for confessed sinners. Telling a wrongdoer the truth so he may repent is not hatred.
- Escape. The question stays open: Nicodemus escaped, and Paul escaped, so the danger is real but so is the way out.