Sermon notes

INTRODUCTION

Jesus’ curses against the scribes and Pharisees climax in a lament over the doomed city of Jerusalem . He has tried to gather her to Himself, but she has refused. Like Yahweh in the days of Ezekiel (chs. 8-11), Jesus abandons the temple (Matthew 24:1).

THE TEXT

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ . . . ” (Matthew 23:29-24:2).

TOMBS OF THE PROPHETS

Over the centuries, there had been many Jewish martyrs, especially after the Maccabean period. A few are found in the Old Testament, and Jesus gives two examples, one a righteous man and the other a prophet. Jesus counts Abel as a martyr (Matthew 24:35; cf. Genesis 4:1-8), one of the “righteous” killed by Pharisees (v. 29). Jesus implicitly associates the Pharisees with the fratricidal Cain. Joash killed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada who prophesied against him (2 Chronicles 24:21), and this is the last murder found in the Old Testament. (Berechiah was the grandfather of Zechariah the prophet, Zechariah 1:1.) Though the Pharisees and scribes try to escape association with the murderers by adorning their tombs, Jesus says that they are their sons; like father, like son. They are Canaanites, filling up the measure of their guilt in preparation for judgment (v. 32; cf. Genesis 15:16 ). Worse, they are vipers, children of their father the devil (v. 33).

SENDING PROPHETS

What reveals the truth about the tomb-adorning Pharisees is their treatment of the prophets and wise men that Jesus sends to them. The Jewish leaders will treat them just as they treated Jesus: killing, crucifying, scouring, persecuting (v. 34). This is the real final straw for Jerusalem . Jerusalem is not charged with all the innocent blood of earth because it sheds the blood of Jesus, but because it kills Jesus’ disciples, whose righteous blood cries out against the city (cf. Genesis 4:10 ; Isaiah 26:21; Ezekiel 24:7-8; Joel 3:19 ; Revelation 16; 17:6).

LEFT DESOLATE

Jesus’ offer to Jerusalem was sincere. Yahweh rescued Israel from Egypt on “eagles’ wings” (Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:11), and the Psalmist seeks protection under the cherubim wings of Yahweh (Psalm 17:8; 18:10 ; 36:7; 57:1; etc.). The “wing” is the corner of the husband’s garment that he lays over His bride (cf. Ruth 2:12 ; 3:9). Israel refuses her “mother” hen and her husband, and so her house is going to be turned to desert (v 38).

INSPECTION

Under the law, a house could become leprous, stained with mildew or other mold. When the priest discovers that the mold is spreading and cannot be stopped, the house has to be torn down (Leviticus 14:33 -53, esp. v. 45). Throughout His time in the temple, Jesus has been an inspecting priest. He has discovered that the temple is full of defiling mold, the Pharisees, scribes, elders, and priests themselves contaminate the house. There is no choice: The house must be dismantled until not one stone is left on another (Matthew 24:2).