What is Moses' seat?

Matthew 23 clearly shows how far the disciples are viewed in connection with the nation, inasmuch as they were Jews, although the Lord judges the leaders, who beguiled the people and dishonoured God by their hypocrisy. He speaks to the multitude and to His disciples, saying, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat." Being thus expositors of the law, they were to be obeyed in all that they said according to that law, although their own conduct was but hypocrisy. That which is important here is the position of the disciples; it is in fact the same as that of Jesus. They are in connection with all that is of God in the nation, that is to say, with the nation as the recognised people of God — consequently, with the law as possessing authority from God. At the same time the Lord judges, and the disciples also were practically to judge, the walk of the nation, as publicly represented by their leaders. While still forming part of the nation, they were carefully to avoid the walk of the scribes and Pharisees. After having reproached these pastors of the nation with their hypocrisy, the Lord points out the way in which they themselves condemned the deeds of their fathers — by building the sepulchres of the prophets whom they had slain. They were, then, the children of those who slew them, and God would put them to the test by sending them also prophets and wise men and scribes, and they would fill up the measure of their iniquity by putting these to death and persecuting them — condemned thus out of their own mouths — in order that all the righteous blood which had been shed, from Abel's to that of the prophet Zechariah, should come upon this generation. Frightful amount of guilt, accumulated from the beginning of the enmity which sinful man, when placed under responsibility, has ever shown to the testimony of God; and which increased daily, because the conscience became more hardened each time that it resisted this testimony! The truth was so much the more manifest from its witnesses having suffered. It was a rock, exposed to view, to be avoided in the people's path. But they persisted in their evil course, and every step in advance, every similar act, was the proof of a still increasing obduracy. The patience of God, while graciously dealing in testimony, had not been unobservant of their ways, and under this patience all had accumulated. All would be heaped upon the head of this reprobate generation.

(1) The scribes and Pharisees had set themselves down in Moses, seat. It was their own act, and yet could not be looked upon wholly as a usurpation. An earnest zeal for the law of God in opposition to prevailing laxity had put them originally in the place that they now occupied. Degeneration had come in, and they had fallen from the ancient spirit while retaining the place ― a place in which the Lord evidently recognizes them here, while recognizing fully also the degeneracy. They were now mere barren professors, contradicting their profession with their lives; while the rule of the rabbi was a tyranny of the severest kind, binding upon men's shoulders burdens grievous to be borne ― a growing oppression; more and more intolerable, and never lightened.

It was, then, part of our Lord's Jewish mission to say that "the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do" (vers. 2, 3). But there was the careful warning against making the scribes and Pharisees in anywise personal standards of good and evil. "Do not ye after their works; for they say, and do not." They were in themselves beacons, patterns of wrong, not of right (vers. 3-7). Still, not only were the disciples classed with the multitude, but in the very strongest denunciations of these religious guides they were bound as yet by the Lord to acknowledge those who sat in Moses' seat. There they were in fact, and the Lord maintains, instead of dissolving, the obligation to own them and whatever they set forth, not of their own traditions, but from the law. This was to honour God Himself, spite of the hypocrites who only sought man's honour for themselves, and it affords no warrant for false apostles or their self-deceived successors now. For the apostles had no seats like that of Moses; and Christianity is not a system of ordinance or formal observance like the law, but, where real, is the fruit of the Spirit through life in Christ, which is formed and fed by the word of God.

The leaders occupied Moses' seat. So long as they enforced the law of Moses they were to be obeyed, but they were destitute of the very first principle of a true lawgiver, which is to be himself subject to the laws. These, on the contrary, exalt themselves at the expense of a burdened people. How opposite to the lowliness which our Lord enjoins upon His disciples and which He so perfectly exemplified.

"Then Jesus spoke to the multitude and to His disciples, saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have set themselves down in Moses' seat; all things therefore, whatever they may tell you, do keep. But do not after their works, for they say and do not, but bind burdens heavy and hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of men, but will not move them with their finger. And all their works they do to be seen of men: for they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the chief place in feasts, and the first seats in the synagogue, and salutations in the market places, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But ye, be ye not called Rabbi; for one is your instructor, and all ye are brethren. And call not any one your father upon earth; for one is your Father, He who is in the heavens. Neither be called leaders, for one is your leader, the Christ. But the greatest of you shall be your servant. And whoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled, and whoever shall humble himself shall be exalted" (verses 1-12). These are indeed cutting words. Out of His mouth goes a two-edged sword. Well may these words be placed in connection with the church message to Pergamos, in which the glorified Christ saith, "These things says He that has the sharp two-edged sword." Pergamos shows prophetically that period of the church when Ritualism, Nicolaitanism (Clericalism) came in like a flood and a certain class of men assumed the place of authority in the church, as leaders, priests, and began to dictate and teach the traditions of men. And ever since that time and through that into which Pergamos developed, Thyatira (Roman Catholicism), the leaven of the Pharisees, has worked on in Christendom and is still working. The Lord speaks first of all of the place which the scribes and Pharisees had chosen. They had placed themselves in Moses' seat. This no doubt He spoke in reference to legislation and not in regard to doctrine.

The disciples are left by the Lord in the relation with the Jewish chiefs in which they were then found and up to the judicial rejection of the people at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. The Saviour places them in the same category as the multitude. All were subjected to the authority of the scribes and the Pharisees. These were seated in Moses' seat; and one ought to hear them as to injunctions which they drew from the law given by his means. Nevertheless one must carefully guard against following their walk: they were hypocrites who spoke and did not act. They made the law very strict for others and very light for themselves; they loved to appear before men with the forms of piety to acquire a religious reputation; they sought the first places in the synagogues, salutations in the public places, and to be called Rabbi, making themselves esteemed in the eyes of the world by religion.

He began by according to them the place they claimed as the exponents of the law of Moses. Therefore the people were to keep and do the law as they heard it from their lips. Yet they were to carefully avoid taking them as examples. Their lives contradicted the law they proclaimed. They legislated for others without the smallest conscience as to their own obedience. This the Lord stated in verse 4, and it is a very common offence with professional religionists, who love directing other people while having an easy time themselves.

But first of all He sets up the Scribes and Pharisees, not as an example, but as a warning, whose works the disciples were to avoid. Whatsoever they taught from the law was to be observed, for the age of law was not yet closed. God still recognised that order which He had ordained, however much men had abused it. So the Lord speaks of them as "sitting in Moses' seat," that is — continuing his teaching. As such they were in the place of responsibility — before God, and would be held to be so. As the principles that governed their lives are exposed, we can only exclaim with the prophet, "The heart is deceitful above all things: who can know it?" And the answer is: — "I the Lord" (Jer. 17:9). Here we get that which appeals to the natural mind.

In the New Testament the word is used in the sense in which it is applied to Ezra, and scribes are classed with the chief priests and the elders. They are described as sitting in Moses' seat, and what they taught was to be observed; but, alas, their works were not to be followed. Matt. 7:29; Matt. 23:2, 13-33. Many woes are proclaimed against them, and they are addressed, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Thus these men, who ought to have been examples to others, were publicly denounced because their practice denied what they taught. They did not form a separate sect in New Testament times, a person might be both scribe and Pharisee or Sadducee: cf. Acts 23:9.

The Lord addresses the people in verses 1-12. Moses' seat is occupied by the Scribes and the Pharisees: all things therefore, whatever they may tell you, do and keep. But do not after their works, for they say and do not, but bind burdens hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of men, but will not move them with their finger. In their ostentation and love of pre-eminence they scruple not to use the legal code to crush the people. Coming back to the law of His Kingdom the Lord asserts that great truth that he that will be greatest must be servant of all.