Who were the Pharisees?

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 Lord severely rebuked all their pretensions, and laid bare their wickedness as well as their hypocrisy. It may have been that because of the great laxity of the Jews generally, some at first devoutly sought for greater sanctity. Others, not sincere, may have joined themselves to the sect, and it thus degenerated from its original design, until its moral state became such as was exposed and denounced by the Lord. The very name has become a synonym for bigotry and formalism. Probably such men as Gamaliel, Nicodemus, and Saul were men of a different stamp, though all needed the regenerating power of grace to give them what they professed to seek.

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.

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.

"Offspring of vipers!" thus the Holy Spirit declared through the forerunner their true character. What a strong and cutting word it is, which applies not alone to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but to all ritualistic-religiousness and unbelieving criticism. They are the offspring not of God but of vipers. But still they were the proud boasters of being the seed of Abraham and as such entitled to the promised blessing. They believed that they were to be saved from the wrath of God connected with the establishment of the kingdom, and the wrath would fall entirely upon the Gentile nations. One only needs to peruse some of the tracts of the Talmud to find the reflection of their proud, self-righteous belief. When they came, they were far from taking that true position in repentance, in death. And so John demands of them that they are to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. He uncovers their false pretensions, and shows that no natural birth, no religious attainment would deliver them in the day of wrath. This is followed by the announcement of the nearness of the judgment, the axe laid at the root of the trees, ready to fell the mighty trees void of fruit. All this finds an application in the day in which we live, when the axe is once more laid at the roots to cut off and cast into the fire that which has not brought fruit. (The conditions in nominal Christendom now, immediately before the Second Coming of Christ, are the same as the conditions in professing Judaism at the time of His first coming.)

"For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5: 20). Since the time of the Babylonian captivity a large collection of interpretations and ordinances has been added by the Talmud, in addition to the law. In the New Testament these are called "the tradition of the elders." The scribes were those best acquainted with the law and these human ordinances, whereas the Pharisees were their strictest observers. In Matthew 23 the Lord Jesus utters a sevenfold "woe" over these men and their behaviour which was marked by egoism and emphasising outward appearance (Matt. 23: 5-7, 25-28. Verse 14 is omitted in the J.N.D. Trans.). They might appear pious and righteous before men but before God their attitude could not stand.

“For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20). Since the time of the Babylonian captivity a large collection of interpretations and ordinances has been added by the Talmud, in addition to the law. In the New Testament these are called “the tradition of the elders.” The scribes were those best acquainted with the law and these human ordinances, whereas the Pharisees were their strictest observers. In Matthew 23 the Lord Jesus utters a sevenfold “woe” over these men and their behaviour which was marked by egoism and emphasising outward appearance (Matt. 23:5-7, 25-28. Verse 14 is omitted in the J.N.D. Trans.). They might appear pious and righteous before men but before God their attitude could not stand.

But we soon find the opposition of the heart to God revealing itself, even under apparent conformity to such humbling requirements, and John emphasizes therefore the division that would be made among men when the King should come. For now, among the multitude, whether merely to be in the fashion, or else moved by a power to which they would not wholly yield themselves, many Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism. They were the religious leaders of the people, though far enough apart from one another, types of the two directions in which men turn away from God. As the Pharisee was the legalist and formalist, so the Sadducee was the rationalist and semi-infidel of his day. Apart as they were from one another, they could yet show their essential oneness by the way in which they could combine against the followers of the Lord; and John treats them as one, essentially. "O brood of vipers," he exclaims, "who has shown you that ye should flee from the coming wrath?" He could not credit them with having felt the sting of such an incentive. They must prove, then, the reality of it ― must bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. And here self-judgment would show itself first of all, in giving up the false and futile pretensions which they based upon their descent from Abraham, for all the promises to him God could fulfil to a seed raised up to him from what might be to them as it were from the very stones.

Alas, it was in this interval that Pharisaism arose under the guise of patriotism and a zeal, all too late, for the Word which they had slighted. It took up fanatically the covenant under the condemnation of which they lay ― not heeding, not accepting the condemnation. It took up the law to fence it in by fresh prohibitions from the possibility of a breach, but thus turned it into a mere and grievous yoke of ordinances, without life, which they could not deal with, and so ignored. Above all, it built them up in a self-righteousness which made them inaccessible to the grace of Christ, while ignorant and because of their ignorance of the righteousness of God which would have led them to repentance. They became thus the "ninety and nine just persons who needed no repentance," and who could therefore ask indignantly and decidedly," Which of the Pharisees have believed on Him?"

In Nicodemus we find a man who was in an even more favoured position, he was one of the people of God who had a special place, he was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were a group of people from among the Jews who were most zealous for the law and who were the teachers of the law to the people, yet in the last verses of chapter 7 this group, who did not know the Lord, are themselves shown to be accursed. The Pharisees thought that they were the best part of the people, and outwardly they were as their judgment of their fellow people of Israel showed, yet these very people whom the Lord did not know, were themselves accursed.

"Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem." (v. 1.) The scribes were persons learned in the law, and the Pharisees were religionists of the sect most esteemed in religion; as Paul says, "After the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee" (Acts 26:5); and they were "of Jerusalem," the very centre of God's polity, so that everything that could give the weight of authority to "religion" was there.

John accordingly is found outside the religion of man, as well as outside his profanity. He was not in Rome, but he was also away from Jerusalem; and this, in the predicted messenger of Jehovah, was a most solemn feature. "Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Here is a part of that truth which is exceedingly startling, when we reflect upon it. The Pharisees were, religiously, the most influential in Israel. The Sadducees were the loose, secular, self-indulgent class; the Pharisees, those who stood very firm for what they considered the truth. Yet when John sees them both coming to his baptism, he says, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance" — fruits of a kindred character. He maintains that the day of ceremonialism, or of birthrights, was completely past. The Pharisee might rest upon his religion; the Sadducee upon the fact that he was a child of Abraham. The desire to escape wrath and to have part in the kingdom might be no more than nature. Humbled souls suit the kingdom. Descent from the fathers, the law, the promises even, may be turned into a right against God, who will not allow it, and can raise out of the stones children to Abraham. But there must be, if they would draw near to God, ways of a nature morally suitable to God. "Bring forth, therefore," he says, "fruits meet for repentance." He is not explaining here how a sinner is to be saved, or how God remits sins; but that, if persons take the stand of having to do with God, there must be what becomes His presence. So the apostle says to the Hebrews, "Follow peace and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." He is not speaking there of what is imputed, but of holiness as a practical thing. This is written to Christians; and the Holy Ghost does not hesitate to insist upon it. So strong is the tendency to reaction in human nature that the very baptized Jews, who had been pleading for the law, might fall into the opposite extreme and think that sin is compatible with the salvation that God gives through grace. But God never allows that His nature can coexist with sanctioned iniquity.