What are the differences between the Sadducees and Pharisees?

Next to the Pharisees, the Sadducees were the most prominent sect of the Jews. The Pharisees made proselytes, but the Sadducees were much more exclusive, and therefore remained fewer in number. They did not believe in the resurrection, nor in angels, nor in spirits: they held that the soul perished with the body. Matt. 22:23; Acts 4:1-2; Acts 23:8. Though strict in regard to the written law of Moses, they repudiated the traditions of the elders, or what is called the oral law. They believed that God punished a man's sins during his life, and that man's will was free, and he had power to restrain his passions. In consequence of this they were severe judges. The Lord Jesus warned His disciples against their doctrines, and denounced them as the 'offspring of vipers.' The tenets of the modern rationalists have much in common with the Sadducees.

Why should the disciples of Christ have needed such a warning? Did they belong to the sect of the Pharisees or of the Sadducees? Had they not associated themselves with Christ? Were they in danger of the leaven in spite of that? And, if so, was the danger confined to the disciples of our Lord's day, or are we possibly in danger of the same leaven? To answer this question we must first enquire who and what the Pharisees and the Sadducees were.

Historically, both these sects took their rise among the remnant of Israel who were restored to their own land after the Babylonian captivity. After the early fervour of the restoration had died away, and the revivals in which the people confessed their sins and turned again to God seemed to have ceased, many of the more influential Jews lost faith in their separate calling and compromised in greater or less degree with the heathenism around. Others, condemning such unfaithfulness, sought support amid the prevailing weakness in a firm adherence to the law and a rigid exclusion of every non-Jewish element. These two tendencies gave rise to the two sects of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were essentially the religious party. More than that, they were the separate party; the very name Pharisee means “separate one.” Their ideal was that of a select body in the midst of the Jewish people, a nation within a nation, marked off from the rest at least in matters of outward association and outward practice. They did not (as the Sadducees did) conform to the secular world around them; they held aloof from the culture of Greece and the politics of Rome. Even in their decline, when their separation had become more and more purely outward and formal, they were devoted to their religion; they compassed sea and land to make one proselyte, and when they had found him they made him like themselves, only more so (Matt. 23:15). But, though separate and aloof, they were highly respected by the public; to be “as touching the law, a Pharisee” was the highest religious commendation. And, however we may explain it, we find them possessed of a more explicit belief in the resurrection of the dead and in certain other elements of the future life than had been expressed by any of the prophets before them. In that sense they had much light.

The Sadducees were also a religious party, but they stood rather for the worldly side of the religious profession; to them fell the high offices of the temple, with a leading part in public affairs (Acts 4, 5). Their beliefs were less exacting and their practice was less strict than those of the Pharisees. As regards their beliefs they “say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit” (Acts 23:8; Matt. 22:23 ). It is natural, therefore, that while they did not come into such constant and open conflict with our Lord as the Pharisees did, they were violently opposed to the power of the Spirit and the testimony of the resurrection as afterwards set forth by the apostles. As regards their practice, unlike the more strictly constituted Pharisees, they accommodated themselves easily to the secularising influence of the Greeks and Romans. To “take nothing of the Gentiles” was not their ideal; no harsh restrictions for them!

The Sadducees were rationalist and intellectual; if they had difficulties they put them politely before our Lord (Matt. 22:23 -33). Compared with the Pharisees, they were secular and negative; and for that reason they were singularly ineffective; they made no real mark even as a religious influence among men. Of the Pharisees our Lord could at least say that, if their works were rarely right, their words often were: “The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do ye not after their works: for they say and do not” (Matt. 23:2). He could hardly have said as much of the Sadducees. They were not ambitious of the discomforts of a devoted life; we do not read of them that they compassed sea and land to make one proselyte. If the Pharisee thanks God that he is not as other men are, the Sadducee thanks God that he “makes no pretence” to any special devotedness!

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, nor in angels, nor in spirits, whilst the Pharisees believed in all these.

Many then were baptized unto repentance by the forerunner. But now for the first time we meet with the two great religious classes and leaders among the Jews, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who came out to John. These two classes play an important role in the Gospel. The Pharisees* were the strictly religious, orthodox-ritualistic class. (The name Pharisee means a Separatist. One who says: "I am holier than them.") They were well versed in the traditions of the elders, and occupied themselves with creating new commandments and strange interpretations of the law. They are the fathers of the talmudical Jews of the present day and typical of ritualistic Christendom, having the form of godliness and not the power. The Sadducees were the rationalists, the unbelieving class. They were much given to reform. Their offspring today are the reformed Jews, who reject the greater part of the Word of God, and in Christendom they are remarkably reproduced in the unevangelical "Isms," though they call themselves "Christian" (as the Sadducees called themselves Jews), who reject portions of the Word, who do not believe in the inspiration of the Bible.

And we may note that the inspired historian seems in some way to connect them, when, Paul having proclaimed himself in the council a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, he adds in explanation: "for the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both."

The resurrection of the body was denied by the Sadducees, who professed, in common with the Pharisees, to accept the Pentateuch as authoritative divine revelation. With what an air of triumph — we can picture it — a Sadducee might hold the roll of the law in his hands, and challenge the Pharisee to point out one passage in which the term resurrection could be found, or in which man's existence after death was affirmed. No such formal teaching on that subject like that in 1 Cor. 15 could be found in any one of the five books of the law; yet the truth of the resurrection of the dead was really to be found imbedded in the Mosaic writings, as the Lord brought out in a way which at once and effectually put the Sadducees to silence. Teaching there was which implied it, though the subject was not one formally treated of by the law giver.

This name was given to a religious school among the Jews; it is supposed to have been derived from the Hebrew word parash, signifying 'to separate'; it was given to them by others, their chosen name being chasidim, 'pious ones.' Josephus speaks of them as early as the reign of Jonathan (B.C. 161-144). They prided themselves on their superior sanctity of life, devotion to God, and their study of the law. The Pharisee in the parable thanked God that he was 'not as other men.' Luke 18:11. Paul, when before Agrippa, spoke of them as 'the most straitest sect.' The Pharisees included all classes of men, rich and poor: they were numerous, and at times had great influence. In the council before which Paul was arraigned they were well represented. Acts 23:6-9. They were the great advocates of tradition, and were punctilious in paying tithes. In many respects the ritualists of modern days resemble them.

The Pharisees were the Ritualists, and the Sadducees the Rationalists of that day. The Pharisees were particular about little things, taking mint and anise and cummin, but they were careless of the weighty matters of the law. But there is wrath, and always "wrath to come. "He who refuses to be subject to the Son, the wrath of God abides on him.

It is well to have that which was from the beginning; that is what John, by the Spirit, is continually bringing us back to. False teachers, like the Pharisees, sought to add, bringing in the traditions of the ancients, and many burdensome but useless observances, in place of the Law of God; while others, like the Sadducees, would take away, denying the resurrection from the dead, with all it implies, as to reward or punishment.