The Pharisees

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
THE PHARISEES
DR. JIM DIXON
AUGUST 23, 1987
JOHN 5:1-28

They were organized 200 years before Christ. They disappeared 200 years after Christ. They were 6,000 in number. They are mentioned exactly 101 times in the Bible. They were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the religious leaders. They were the custodians of the law. They were venerated by the people, but the Pharisees were not venerated by Jesus Christ. Even a brief glimpse at the pages of scripture shows us that Christ did not venerate the Pharisees. He called them serpents. He called them a brood of vipers. He called them whitewashed sepulchers, clean on the outside but dead on the inside. He called them blind guides. He called them blind fools. He called them children of Satan, and He said that they were destined for hell. He called them hypocrites.

You see, in the sight of God the Pharisees had two big problems. First of all, the Pharisees were self-righteous. In our passage of scripture for today, we are told that the Pharisees actually accused Jesus Christ, the Son of God, of breaking the law. They never would’ve made that accusation had they not been self-righteous. You see, the Pharisees believed that they were fulfilling the law perfectly and they accused Christ, the Son of God, of breaking the laws of God—a serious accusation.

Of course, we live in a world where people break the laws all the time. Some time ago, Barb woke me up at 2:30 in the morning. She said, “Jim, someone’s in the house downstairs. They’re either in the house or they’re coming in. I can hear them.” I was kind of in a fog, but I could tell Barb was very serious. In fact, Barb reached over and grabbed the phone and called the police. And the police told Barb that we should stay in our bedroom and we shouldn’t go downstairs and we should keep them on the line. They said they’d send police right over. It all seemed kind of strange to me. And I never heard anybody in the house. I couldn’t hear anybody downstairs, and I felt kind of restless.

So I got my baseball bat. I’m not sure what I expected to do with it. I know this: if you have a bat and the other guy has a gun, you lose. But I took my baseball bat and I went downstairs and I went into the family room there. I was going real quiet. I turned on the light. And guess what? Barb was right. Some men were coming into the family room of our house through the window. And when I turned on the light, fortunately, they began to run. They ran out across the yard into a van, and I saw the van drive away. I told Barb and she told the police on the phone the description of the van, and we were told that the police wouldn’t come immediately to our home but that they would pursue the van and come to our house later.

About a half hour later, shortly after 3:00 AM, a cop came to our house. He was really a nice guy, and we walked around the outside of the house and he showed us where they went over the fence and he kind of gave me some advice on what I could do to make the house a little more safe. And as we were walking around the house he was listening to his radio on his police ban. And there came report after report of criminal activity around Denver. And he would listen from time to time. And I said, “Wow, they are really keeping you busy out there, aren’t they?” And he just shook his head and he said, “It’s a jungle.” And you know, it’s kind of an alarming thing when you stop to think that every night all over the metropolitan area of Denver crimes are being committed all night long. And not only in this city, but in cities all over the world crimes are being committed. People are breaking the law.

Have you ever wondered how God feels when He looks down on this world? He created a paradise and it’s become a jungle, and His laws are being broken every day and every night. Have you ever wondered who polices the laws of God? Who enforces God’s laws? Well, in biblical times, in the days of Christ, the Pharisees did. They enforced God’s laws. Now you see, God never asked them to do that. The Pharisees just chose to do that. They enforced the laws of God.

But the problem was that the Pharisees didn’t even understand the laws of God. And I think it’s safe to say that even the Orthodox Jews today do not really understand the laws of God. When most of us think of God’s laws, we think of the 10 Commandments, or perhaps we think of the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Old Testament, the books of Moses. Or perhaps we think of the whole Old Testament or the whole Bible because the Bible contains the instructions of God. But you see, today when an Orthodox Jew thinks of the laws of God he or she does not think of the Bible primarily but of the Talmud. For the Orthodox Jew, the Talmud contains the complete laws of God. The Talmud is the second most sacred book for the Orthodox Jew.

The Talmud contains 63 tractates—63 sections—with thousands of petty laws and rules dealing with everything from marriage to purification rights. The Talmud contains, really, two books. It contains the Mishna, which is all of the oral traditions of Jewish law through all the centuries that have been written down. The Talmud also contains the Gemara, which is the commentary on the Mishna. In the Talmud, we have thousands and thousands of do’s and don’ts, expansions of the law of God.

Wilber Smith, the great Bible teacher, was in Israel some time ago and he was visiting Dr. Klausner, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an Orthodox Jew. Wilber Smith had taken photographs throughout Israel of people and places, and he had taken a photograph of Dr. Klausner. He asked Dr. Klausner if he would sign on the page where his photograph was on the album that Wilber Smith had. And Dr. Klausner refused. He said, “I can’t sign my autograph today.” Wilber Smith said, “Well, why is that?” Dr. Klausner said, “Well, you see, this is the Sabbath today. And according to the Talmud, I can’t write two words in succession today.” Dr. Klausner said, “You know, I could write one name or the other: my first name or my last name. Which do you want? But I can’t write my full name.”

It seems strange, doesn’t it? But such are the jot and tittle of the laws that are reflected in the Talmudic literature. And you see, in the days of Christ when the Pharisees flourished, the Talmud didn’t even exist. At least, it didn’t exist in written form. The Mishna was written between 700 and 200 AD and the Gemara between 200 and 500 AD. But you see, all the oral traditions—all those thousands of do’s and don’ts—were carried on by oral tradition. They had been memorized by a group of people called the Pharisees. They were walking Talmuds. They had all the laws memorized and thousands more. They memorized every jot and tittle of the law, and they enforced them.

For instance, the Pharisees knew that the Bible said that we were to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy and that the Bible cautions us regarding work on the Sabbath. And so the Pharisees said to themselves, “Well, what is work? If God doesn’t want us to work on the Sabbath, what is work?” And so they set forth to define work. And believe it or not, they established 39 different classifications of work. They defined 39 different categories and in each category put thousands of laws.

Now, one of their 39 categories of work was carrying a burden. That was one of the 39 categories: to carry a burden. That was work. You couldn’t do it on the Sabbath. Of course, they had thousands of laws regarding what it meant to carry a burden. They sat down and they spent hours and days and months thinking about that. What did it mean to carry a burden? They decided that you couldn’t carry a needle in your robe on the Sabbath day because that constituted a burden and therefore it was work and therefore it was a violation of the law of God. They decided you couldn’t wear false teeth on the Sabbath. You couldn’t wear your wooden leg on the Sabbath. A woman couldn’t wear a broach. It constituted a burden and it was wrong.

So obviously, when the paralytic was healed on the Sabbath and he picked up his bed and he began to walk, the Pharisees had a problem. They didn’t care that this man had been an invalid for 38 years. They didn’t care that he had just miraculously been healed. They cared because he was violating the law. He was carrying a burden on the Sabbath, violating one of the 39 classifications of work. If a needle is a burden, surely a bed is. The Pharisees were enraged. They were mad at this man for violating God’s laws and they were mad at Christ because He told this man to take up his bed and walk. They were mad at Christ because He performed a healing on the Sabbath, and a healing was also work. So they accused Christ of violating the Sabbath law.

Now of course, Christ never really violated the laws of God. He’s the only one who ever lived who perfectly fulfilled all the law of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ remembered the Sabbath day and He kept it holy, as He kept all days holy. You see, what Jesus Christ violated were all of their petty, pharisaic, Talmud laws. Jesus Christ explained to the Pharisees time and again that the true law of God is rooted in love—God’s love for us. That’s why God gave the law and that’s why God established the Sabbath day. Jesus said, “Man wasn’t made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man.” He said this because God created the Sabbath day in order that man might be served and man’s need to worship God might be served.

God’s intent was that we would set time apart to worship Him. That was God’s intent. But you see, the Pharisees had converted that (or perverted that) into thousands of petty laws and rules, do’s and don’ts. We might ask ourselves, “Well, why did the Pharisees do this? Why did they make these thousands of laws? Did they do this because they had such a fervent desire to please God?” The Bible indicates that very few of them had a fervent desire to please God. Did they do it because they really wanted to burden the masses? Some people think that, but most of the Pharisees didn’t really want to burden the masses. You see, the reason the Bible tells us that the Pharisees made all these petty rules is because they were self-righteous. They wanted to make the law measurable. They wanted to make the law attainable so they could perform the requirements of righteousness and be self-righteous.

You see, the Bible tells us that the true laws of God are not attainable. No one who has ever lived has fulfilled the law of God perfectly except for Jesus Christ. Each and every one of us has violated the law of God. We have all (spiritually speaking) committed idolatry. Whenever we put anything in the place of the kingdom of Christ we commit idolatry. Whenever we put anyone in place of God in our life, we commit idolatry. We have all violated the Sabbath. We have all (spiritually speaking) created graven images. We have all murdered in our hearts and we’ve committed adultery in our minds. We have all born false witness. We have all coveted. We have all violated the law of God. That’s why Jesus said to the Pharisees and to the masses, “You have heard it said of old, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ and, ‘Whoever kills shall be liable to hellfire.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother shall be liable for judgment. And you’ve heard it said of old, ‘Thou shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you, whoever looks upon a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” You see, Jesus wanted us to understand that the true law of God is not an external list of do’s and don’ts but is a matter of the heart.

The true laws of God are pure and perfect, and they are not attainable for fallen humanity. We have all violated the laws of God and we all are in desperate need of God’s grace. We are in desperate need of God’s mercy. But you see, the Pharisees didn’t want God’s grace and didn’t want God’s mercy. They wanted to make the law into a standard through which they could attain self-righteousness. That’s why they made thousands of difficult little do’s and don’ts that they could perform and thereby feel self-righteous. That’s why they did it.

Jesus didn’t break the laws of God. He only broke the Pharisee’s standards of self-righteousness. I don’t think it’s possible for us to understand how much God hates self-righteousness. We look at our Lord Jesus Christ, and He had such compassion on people. The Bible says He associated with publicans, sinners, winebibbers, and drunkards. He forgave the woman caught in the very act of adultery. He hates sin, but He showed tremendous compassion towards sinners. And there’s no group of people on the whole Earth that Jesus Christ was more angry with than the Pharisees. They were the only people that really felt His wrath, because He hates self-righteousness. In the midst of all of Christ’s compassion, He calls the Pharisees, serpents, vipers, hypocrites, children of Satan, destined for hell, blind guides, blind fools, and whitewashed sepulchers.

You see, pharisaism is a danger today. We can be Pharisees today, and here is the warning of God. You know, I grew up in fundamentalism just as many of you did. I and my parents were fundamentalists. Sometimes fundamentalism becomes pharisaic. My parents were not pharisaic because they understood that the law of God is summed up in love, and that came through. But I was reared in fundamentalism, with long lists of do’s and don’ts. I was told I could not smoke, I could not drink, I could not dance, and I could not go to movies. The first movie I went to was when I was 16 years old. I went to see Swiss Family Robinson. I disobeyed when I did that. I was told I couldn’t dance. Perhaps my parents had watched me try, but I was told I couldn’t dance. But you see, the Bible doesn’t say and God has not said that you can’t smoke, you can’t drink, you can’t dance, and you can’t go to movies. Those kinds of statements are Talmudic and pharisaic. They are do’s and don’ts that go beyond the true word of God.

Now, it’s true that God wants us to take care of our bodies and that smoking habitually abuses the body. And God would have us avoid that. It is true that there are some movies that we best not go to if we have discernment. It is true that the Bible condemns drunkenness, and if we have a tendency towards alcoholism we are better off not drinking at all. And it is true, perhaps, that certain forms of dancing are excessive or suggestive. But you see, the Bible is not nearly as legalistic as fundamentalism or pharisaism. And there’s a danger when we establish all these lists of do’s and don’ts, and the danger is that we might begin to think that in the performing of that list of do’s and don’ts we are somehow righteous. And God hates that. He hates self-righteousness. He loves obedience, but He hates self-righteousness.

If we don’t want to be pharisaic, then we must acknowledge that we have transgressed the laws of God—that we break His law every day in our hearts. We must acknowledge our desperate need for His grace and His mercy. If we don’t want to be pharisaic, we must begin to show mercy towards others for Christ’s sake and in His name.

Well, secondly and finally, these Pharisees had a problem not only because of their self-righteousness but because of their self-sufficiency. They were a self-sufficient people. They didn’t need God. In truth, they didn’t know God. And in truth, they didn’t really want to know God. God incarnate was in their midst and they didn’t recognize Him because they didn’t want Him. In fact, in our passage of scripture today, they not only accuse Jesus Christ of breaking the law but they accuse Him of making Himself equal with God. It is a serious accusation to accuse someone of making themselves equal with God.

I know all of you have heard of Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill died in 1965 at the age of 91. He was of course prime minister of Great Britain. He was, I think, the man who more than any other man embodied the spirit of English people in their resistance against Nazi aggression during World War II. But Winston Churchill had a lot of flaws. He was not a perfect man. He smoked and drank more than he should have. It was by the grace of God that he had a long life. Winston Churchill had an incredible wit, a keen mind, and a keen sense of humor. Sometimes his wit lacked compassion. He was at a military party once in England and he’d had too much to drink. And a woman came up to him and said, “Mr. Churchill, you’re drunk.” And he looked at her and he said, “Ma’am, you’re ugly. But in the morning I’ll be sober.” He had a keen wit, but he was not always compassionate.

Once when Winston Churchill was at another party he was talking to Nancy Astor, the wife of Waldorf Astor. She was known for her strong opinions and her outspokenness. She was talking to Winston Churchill and they’d had a considerable disagreement. And finally she said to him, ‘Sir, if you were my husband, I’d put poison in your coffee.” And that’s when Winston Churchill of course responded by saying, “Ma’am, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

Sometimes his sense of humor was endearing. On one occasion when he was having a lunch here in America, he was served a luncheon of cold fried chicken. Winston Churchill love to eat, so he went up to the serving table to get seconds. And the lady there asked him what he wanted, and he said he wanted a breast. The lady said, “Mr. Churchill, in this country we say white meat and dark meat.” He apologized profusely and was extremely embarrassed. Later that week, he sent that woman a beautiful orchid with a telegram. And the message said, “I would be exceedingly grateful if you would kindly pin this on your white meat.”

But most of the time, Winston Churchill’s wit was penetrating, Most of the time, his wit showed tremendous observation and discernment. Most of the time, his wit penetrated the truth. On one occasion, there was a man whose named Sir Stafford Crips who had been head of aircraft production and development during World War II in Great Britain. He was a member of the Labor Party, and he was a man who had an insatiable craving for power. Above all else, he sought ascension and domination over men and women. That was the greatest desire of his heart. And on one occasion, Sir Stafford Crips was walking by as Winston Churchill was sitting in the House of Commons. Winston Churchill turned to the man next to him and said, “There, but for the grace of God, goes God.” Now if you think about that, that’s a brilliant statement. “There, but for the grace of God, goes God.” How many people in the world are like that? How many people in the world really want to be God? Perhaps not with a big “G”, but a little “g.” They want to be godlike—they want to ascend, they want dominion over others. They want to be god.

Of course, there are very few people in the world who would actually claim to be the God. On May 13th, 1981, the world was shocked when in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City a man named Mehmet Ali Agca sent two bullets into the body of John Paul II. He sought to assassinate the Pope. No one knows for sure why Mehmet Ali Agca did that. Some claimed that he was part of a KGB plot to assassinate the Pope because of the papal position on solidarity, but no one knows for sure. But you see, it is known that on May 28th, 1985, Mehmet Ali Agca was on trial in Rome, Italy. And as he took the stand, he began to shout, “I am God!” He said, “I am omnipotent!” And he said again, and again, and again, “I am God!” And newspaper reporters and journalists stood up on their tables to get a glimpse of this crazed man who had blasphemed the God of the universe and claimed deity for himself. And isn’t that what we would think of anyone who had claimed to be the Lord God of the universe? And yet, the central truth of Christianity, the very heart of the gospel—at the very center of the teachings of the whole of the Bible—is that there was one Man on this Earth who was God and is God. That Man is Jesus Christ. He is God.

The Bible is clear about that. The Bible says that He was in the beginning with God and is God. The Bible says, “All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.” All things were made by Him, for Him, and through Him. The Bible says, “He is the visible image of the invisible God.” The Bible says that “In Him, all the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell bodily.” The Bible calls Him our great God and Savior. Thomas called Him “My Lord and my God.” The Bible says that He is El Gibbor, the mighty God. He is Emmanuel, God with us.

Jesus spoke of His preexistence when He said, “Before Abraham ever was, I AM.” He spoke of His preexistence when in His prayer of the Father He spoke of the love that He shared with His Father before the worlds were ever made. He spoke of the glory He shared with His Father before the worlds were ever made. And when Philip said to Jesus Christ, “Lord, show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied,” Jesus said, “Philip, have I been with you so long and you do not know Me? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? I and the Father are one.” Jesus Christ is God. But have you ever wondered why God came to Earth in the person of His Son? Have you ever really thought about that? Why did God come to Earth in the person of His Son?

Søren Kierkegaard—the philosopher and theologian of the 19th century, one of the greatest philosophers and theologians of all time—was once asked why he thought God came to Earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Søren Kierkegaard told a little story. He said, “Imagine for a moment that there was a great king of a great kingdom. He was riding through the countryside on his chariot of gold. And he came to a little village. And as he came to that village and looked out, he saw a woman and he loved her. He didn’t know why. He didn’t understand why, but he loved her. Time passed, and from time to time he would get into his chariot and he would ride to that same village in the same part of the country just to get a glimpse of this peasant woman. He would think about her all the time. Finally, he thought, ‘I want her as my wife. I want her as my bride.’ He thought, ‘What shall I do?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll issue a royal decree and I will command by my royal power that she come and be my bride.’ But then he thought to himself, ‘No. She would come by compulsion and she would not come freely.’ Then he thought, ‘Well, I’ll make a royal visitation. I’ll come in pomp and majesty. I’ll come on my chariot of gold pulled by my finest horses. I will come in my royal garb and I will ask her to be my wife.’ But then he thought, ‘No, she wouldn’t really know me. She would simply be intimidated by my presence.’ Then he thought, ‘Well, I’ll pretend to be a peasant and I’ll go and live among her briefly, and then I’ll ask her to be my wife, and I’ll take her back to my palace.’ And then he thought, ‘No, that would merely be deception.’

“So he thought, ‘I know what I must do.’ And he resolved that he would leave his throne and he would leave his chariot of goal and he would leave his kingship and he would come and be a peasant and live with her and among her and seek her as his bride.” You see, Kierkegaard understood that that’s what God’s like. He wants you. He wants friendship with you. He wants relationship with you, and He wanted it so bad that He came in the person of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He came and He became one of us. The Bible says He seeks a bride, He seeks a people. He wants living relationship with them. He wants to know them intimately.

But you see, the Pharisees didn’t really want to know God. They didn’t want to enter into relationship with God. If they had wanted to know God, they would’ve known His Son. The Bible actually says that if anyone really wants to know God and they truly encounter the Son of God, Jesus Christ, they will embrace Him. The Pharisees didn’t really want to know God. They wanted a distant God on a distant throne. They wanted a God aloof. They wanted a theoretical God, the attributes of which they could debate in lofty towers of intellectualism. They didn’t want to know God. They didn’t want His light to penetrate their darkness, a darkness which they sought above all else to hide. They didn’t want God’s grace. They didn’t want God’s mercy. They didn’t want God’s friendship.

Jesus Christ said of the Pharisees that they were children of Satan. Those are strong words. There’s not a single person in this room who would ever want to be called a child of Satan. But you see, the Pharisees had actually been devoured by Satan. They were spiritually dead. I want to close with a little story, something that happened to me just this summer. Barb and I and Drew and Heather went to the zoo, something we do from time to time. You know how it is when you go to the zoo. So often when you go the zoo, the animals just aren’t performing. You see the hippopotamus and he’s just kind of lying there in a big lump. And you look at the rhinos and they’re just lying around sleeping. And the giraffes are all inside the enclosure. And you go and you look at the lions and the tigers and they’re all sleeping, which they do most of the time.

But this particular time when our family went to the zoo, everything was perfect. All the animals were performing, and they were all up and around and moving. Barb and I and the kids went to the tiger enclosure, and if you’ve been to the Denver Zoo you know what that’s like. You know how they have that thick sheet of glass on either end that separates you from the tigers? The tigers are on the other side of the glass and they can tend to pace back and forth when they’re awake. On this particular occasion, we were coming up to the glass (Barb and Drew and Heather were behind me) and there were a lot of other people there. As I was approaching the glass, something really strange happened. I was kind of in a weird mood anyway. As I went up to the glass, suddenly this tiger turned and looked right at me. That’s unusual for a tiger. I mean, they don’t normally even notice the people. But he turned and he looked right at me and I could tell he was really focused at on me. And so I did a really strange thing. Because I was in such a flaky mood I just ran at the glass.

I ran at the glass and I just jumped up at it. I threw my arms and hands out onto the glass and I just shouted. And at exactly that same moment, the tiger did the exact same thing. At that moment, this tiger came at me and he ran at the glass as fast as he could. He dove at that glass. And there was that really horrible moment when I had my hands right against the glass and he literally had his paws right against my hands on the other side of the glass. My face and his face were right together. And the people jumped back. Barb ran out and screamed. The kids screamed and all the people started shouting. And people said, “How did you do that?” And I don’t know how I did that, but it was the weirdest deal. I could tell you there was a moment when I was just frozen on that glass. I mean, what started out as kind of a prank wasn’t a prank anymore. I was just frozen on that glass and his paws were right there and his face was right there. His eyes were filled with hate. He wanted to devour me. And it’s an awfully fortunate thing for him that that glass was there.

The Bible says that Satan is like that tiger. The Bible says that Satan wants you and he wants to devour you. The Bible says in the book of 1 Peter chapter five, “Satan prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” Have you ever thought about that? How does Satan devour us? How can he devour you? What’s the sheet of glass? What…