Who were the Sadducees?

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.

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!

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.

We have yet a particular point to enquire into historically (for the doctrine of eternal life is clear) — how far the Jews thought of this, and how far Christ met their thoughts. The doctrine of eternal life or any life after this world was not necessary to be a good Jew. The priests and high priests were Sadducees, who believed nothing of it. It is said that Sadoc's teaching originally was only urging that rewards after this life ought not to be our motive for goodness, but the blessedness of what was good. However that may be, it ended in his followers denying resurrection, angel, and spirit, and taking this world for their portion. But, while the Pentateuch is silent as to eternal life, saying only, "The man that doeth these things shall live in them," the subsequent teaching of the Jews had brought the nation, with the exception of the Sadducees, to expect eternal life, with the grossest corruption of principles as to merit, balancing accounts of merit and demerit, and even positive superstitions.

The Sadducees were rationalists and denied the existence of angels and the resurrection. They only believed in the giving of the law and accepted the Pentateuch. It was a fine spun argument. The Lord silences them from the portion of the Scriptures they endorsed.

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.

We have seen all through the Acts of the Apostles that the Sadducees were as prominent in opposition after the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Spirit, as the Pharisees had been while the Lord was on earth. There seems a certain fitness in this. The Righteous One was intolerable to the earthly-minded champions of human righteousness, ever found wanting when weighed in God's balances. When He rose from the dead, the Sadducees were naturally roused to action, more especially as at the time they were in outward power. The high priests successively seem to have been of that party. The resurrection of Jesus was a death blow to their system, as it is to infidelity at all times. For it is God's intervention in power whilst the world goes on as it is, the pledge that the risen One will come and judge it, for He it is Who is of God ordained Judge of quick and dead. Resurrection is the sole and final condition of man which answers to the counsels of God, and which will manifest His glory.

Utterly impossible the ecclesiastical authorities felt that such things should be permitted to go on. And now they had, as they thought, a legal right to interpose, and to put the movement down. The Apostles were acting in open defiance of the command of the Sanhedrin, and were evidently enlisting more than ever the populace on their side by the miracles wrought and the healing dispensed. Constituted authority could not be thus bearded with impunity in the metropolis of Judaism. A blow must be struck, which should be at once bold and effective, that all might see that the authorities were not afraid to touch those whom the people, now more than ever, magnified. So the high priest and all that were with him, which was the sect of the Sadducees, arrested the Twelve and put them all in prison. On the previous occasion the priests and the captain of the Temple - i.e., the Temple guard - arrested Peter and John, who were in Solomon's porch (4:1). They had jurisdiction within its precincts, and so interfered. But now it was the Sanhedrin - at least the Sadducean members of it, with the high priest at their head - which had power over matters ecclesiastical in connection with the members of the nation, - a power conferred on the high priest by Julius Cæsar prior to the birth of Christ. [20]

The Sadducees were the very opposite from the Pharisees and the scribes. The Pharisees hated the Sadducees, and the Sadducees were the sworn enemies of the Pharisees. Sadduceeism was the reaction of Phariseeism. It was a reform movement, and as such (like all reform) a big failure. The Sadducees were Freethinkers, Rationalists. They denied the supernatural. Up to this chapter they are mentioned only once before. In the third chapter we read that the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to the Baptism of John. We can well imagine how the Pharisee, when he saw a Sadducee on the road out to the wilderness, would gather his long, flowing robe around himself for fear that the hem of his garment would become defiled by brushing up against that unrighteous Sadducee, while the Sadducee had nothing but looks of scorn and hatred for his brother. John greeted them with the title which belongs to them both, "Offspring of vipers!"

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.)