This blog gives a new meaning to a relatively untouched statement from the mouth of Jesus. We find that statement in the Gospels, especially Matthew. Remember when Jesus slammed the public officials and legal people? Remember when he called them HYPOCRITES? Well, I always just assumed that Jesus was cussing them out. But after reading something in David Flusser’s book, Judaism of the Second Temple Period (V1), I’ve changed my mind. Let’s see what you think of my idea, because it’s just conjecture at this point.
Here’s some of the NT texts recording Jesus’ use of the term HYPOCRITE:
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:5)
7 You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:
8 ‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far away from Me.
9 ‘But in vain do they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’
(Matthew 15)
15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted together how they might trap Him in what He said. 16 And they sent their disciples to Him, along with the Herodians [a political faction giving their allegiance to a ruling family known as “Herods”] … 18 But Jesus perceived their malice, and said, “Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites?” (Matthew 22)
But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees [administrative personnel, lawyers, bureaucrats, lower level judges and other public officials], hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. (Matthew 23:13)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. (Matthew 23:15)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. (Matthew 23:23)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. (Matthew 23:25)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. (Matthew 23:27)
29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? (Matthew 23)
OK, OK, already … I’m getting depressed! LOL … not really. Here we see Jesus calling these ‘authorities’ HYPOCRITES. Let’s not worry about WHY, even though Matthew tells you right there in the text. Note also the word WOE. WOE combined with HYPOCRITE is a very powerful kind of cuss word. There is no equivalent in English language and culture. You have to understand that these ancients didn’t cuss out people like we westerners do today. No. Their style of cuss out was much more sophisticated. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and heard it myself with my own ears when I lived over in Israel/Palestine back in the 80’s. Let me tell you, when you do something over there that deserves more cussing out than they have words for, you can BET that VIOLENCE will ensue! I’ve seen it. I’ve heard about it. It’s happened in modern times. I don’t think we can call it REVENGE. I think it’s the other “R” word: REACTION. Anyways …
One example in the NT comes to mind. Remember when Jesus trashed the bankers’ foreign currency exchange operation? Check it out:
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem [the Capitol]. 14 And He found in the temple [Dept. of Treasury] those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; 16 and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business [= COMMERCE].” (John 2)
Remember from earlier blogs we saw what God’s Capitol will be like when The Messiah establishes God’s kingdom on earth? NO MORE COMMERCE (“business”) IN GOVERNMENT:
And there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts in that day. (Zechariah 14:21)
By now you should have figured out that cussing out someone today is quite a different story from what it was back in Jesus’ time. Actually, I think there’s more to what Jesus was saying than just cussing out someone. I believe he was actually DOING something. I believe Jesus was TOTALLY CONDEMNING THEM TO HELL, or at least pointing out to them that is where they’re headed. Here’s the thing: The ‘authorities’ of Jesus’ day were CONDEMNING based on man-made laws. But Jesus was CONDEMNING based on GOD’S LAW. You have to get the contrast. The ‘authorities’ fully believed their laws were equivalent to God’s law. But to Jesus, GOD’S SON, they were WAY OFF TRACK! So Jesus was merely pointing that out to them, and THEY DIDN’T LIKE IT ONE BIT.
So I believe that Jesus was CONDEMNING the ‘authorities’ of his day BY what he said. That is the point I got out of Flusser’s book, even though he disagrees. Let me show you what I mean. But first you have to note the context of his statement, which is the chapter on the Dead Sea sect, based on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The immediate context regards their “Benediction Against the Minim”. Minim are HERETICS. Heresy was a CAPITAL CRIME back in Jesus’ time. It also was grounds for God to REJECT the person or persons who committed that crime. Here’s what Flusser says about it:
I believe a still more specific definition of these separatists is possible. The list of those who have broken away from the community as a whole and who are thus condemned to hell for all eternity, may be divided into two sub-categories. The first includes “the minim and the apostates and the informants and the hypocrites” … Nonetheless, it stands to reason that those who cut their ties with the People of Israel as a whole are enumerated in the first list. (pp 76-77, emph. added)
The final group of sinners are the HNFIM, the hypocrites. There is no question that hypocrites belong to this list [i.e., the list of minim, or heretics] … The Septuagint also translates the root in this sense, that is, as wickedness and the like. fn31
fn30 – … The Greek upokrites is also found in the Greek translation of Jesus’ words to the Pharisees, particularly in Matthew 23. In his Hebrew translation of the New Testament, Franz Delitzsch renders this terms HNIFIM. If this is indeed the Hebrew word Jesus used for the Pharisees, it stands to reason that he adopted this pejorative designation from the Pharisee’ opponents, though he used it in the more moderate meaning of his day, suggesting that they are hypocrites. The matter, in any case, has not been settled. (p 79)
… the biblical sense of HNFIM did not disappear completely from the Hebrew of the sages even as late as the third century C.E. The following tradition is cited in the name of Rabbi Yonathan, or perhaps Rabbi Yohanan: “Every occurrence of the word HNOFh in Scripture, refers to minim. The key verse for this interpretation is “trembling has seized the godless (HNFIM)” (Isa. 33:14). Here the sage argues that the biblical sense of HNFIM is identical with minim. Thus, the HNFIM are rightly counted in the list of those who have FRSHO MDRKI AYIBOR, alongside the minim. Clearly the HNFIM were characterized by a particular kind of wickedness, unlike that of the other sinners enumerated …. (p 80)
The point of Flusser’s discussion is the ancient view on WHO IS CONDEMNED BY GOD, as determined by the legal authorities and political factions of the time. If you were “condemned” back then for these types of crimes, you would pay in the same way as if you were convicted of big-time crimes today.
So, HYPOCRITES is one category of “sinners” (criminals) who are CONDEMNED by God and by the laws of 2nd Temple society. I believe Jesus’ words are identifying WHICH CATEGORY OF CRIMINAL is the category that the ‘authorities’ fit into. I believe he’s saying the public officials of his day were CRIMINALS of the kind called HYPOCRITES, which is the same as calling them MINNIM (Hebrew for HERETICS). This is not a “religious” term. It’s a LEGAL term that carries with it a CAPITAL SENTENCE (the death penalty). Jesus is essentially saying that the public officials of his day have LEFT THE COMMUNITY OF GOD’S PEOPLE with their brand of ‘governing’, and they SHOULD pay right then and there, but obviously they’ll all pay ON JUDGMENT DAY and ‘in the next life’, because they violate God’s law for the sake of their own power and enrichment at everybody else’s expense. In a word, they are nationally destructive SOCIOPATHS. Here are 3 of Jesus’ sayings that appear to agree with the view that Jesus is condemning these persons:
… you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. (Matthew 23:15)
You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? (Matthew 23:33)
50 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, 51 and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24)
So that’s my new ‘take’ on Jesus’ words to the ‘authorities’ of his day. He wasn’t really cussing them out. Instead, he was adjudging them ‘separated from God’ and thus CONDEMNED both in this life and after death, for their EVIL WORKS as public officials. Like today, they were using THE LAW to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of the general population, while destroying the fabric of the nation in the process. But Jesus, GOD’S MESSIAH, will return with the purpose of delivering all of us who are “oppressed and downtrodden, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).
One final thing I almost forgot: APPLICATION to us today. Can we apply this idea to us moderns? I think we can. We have evil public officials just like they did back in Jesus’ time. They claimed to be a Theocracy’, but when you look at the evidence, they weren’t. They lost that status when their God kicked them out of their land way back in the 8th and 6th centuries BC. Essentially, when God kicked them out of the land, He kicked them out of His presence. When God is no longer ruling over you, you can confidently say you are no longer a ‘Theocracy’. It matters not what name you put on yourself, you just ain’t THAT! So during the days when Jesus was leveling these condemnations at the public officials, they certainly were NOT a theocracy. They were just any other pagan government. After all, they ‘sucked-up’ to ROME and were “violent aggressors”!
Secondly, even if they WERE a ‘Theocracy’, they were required to eventually teach all the nations God’s law, because they were supposed to eventually rule the world. That was supposed to happen when their Messiah appeared to them. Unfortunately he DID, and they DIDN’T figure it out. They MURDERED the guy! ‘Lucky for him’, God raised him from the dead. ‘Touche’ you devils! Anyways, since none of that happened back then, we gotta assume that it’s gonna happen some time in the future, because the Prophets say so. So we can see that Israel’s Theocractic status has no bearing on whether or not God will do what He intends to do. He WILL do it, but only WHEN He’s good and ready to do it. It matters not what His creation thinks!
Meanwhile, THEOCRACY OR NOT, God has a standard by which he judges NATIONS. We see that in the above RANT. We also see it throughout the Prophets, and in various other ways, such as God’s treatment of the Canaanites during the days of Conquest. God judges HIS OWN PEOPLE according to HIS OWN LAW. It matters not HOW THEY PERVERT their own laws to depart from God’s laws. It matters not if they call their own evil laws God’s law. The fact remains: THEY ARE NOT GOD’S LAW and they are NOT APPLYING THEM the way GOD wants them to be applied. THAT is the whole issue in a nutshell.
And since we are all EQUALLY God’s creation. And since we are all EQUALLY human. God has ONLY ONE NATIONAL STANDARD FOR ALL OF US, which is why I reason that He will apply ONLY ONE LAW TO EVERYBODY in the age when His Messiah rules the world. This is spoken of in the Prophets, as I mentioned in previous blogs. So, based on our UNIVERSAL SAMENESS as humans who are God’s creatures, and based on God’s UNCHANGING nature, as we see in the Bible, I’m convinced that God will require the SAME STANDARD for the NATIONAL LAWS from EVERY NATION when He judges them on Judgment Day. That’s a BIG PICTURE view instead of a mere PERSONAL view.
To say it plainly: I think God will judge every nation that ever existed throughout human history according to the standard that Jesus used to Judge the nation of 2nd Temple Israel (as we see above). That means God will judge AMERICA AS A NATION, and ALL American public officials, including ALL the American people who AGREED with them in their rejection of God and His laws, and the perversion of all morality in legislation, litigation and adjudication. I also believe that applies to all CREATURES OF THE STATE, such as corporations, non-profit organizations, and all other law-sanctioned social institutions. THAT is HOW I think the above applies to us today.
Although not very encouraging a conclusion, it is what it is. Too bad nobody pays attention to the BIG PICTURE any more. IF they did, and IF they were ‘Christian’ about it, probably none of this would happen to America, this ‘Christian nation’. But as it is, it doesn’t look too promising! Consequently, I leave you with this:
I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues, for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” (Revelation 18:4-5)
… and this:
See you in the next blog …
Reality Bible 