Why did Jesus rebuke the scribes and Pharisees so harshly in Matthew 23:13-36?
Matthew 23:13 - 36
ESV - 13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
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Asked April 27 2016
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Anonymous (via GotQuestions)
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S. Michael Houdmann
Supporter
In Matthew 23 Jesus pronounces what are known as the "seven woes" on the scribes and Pharisees, the religious elite of the day. The word woe is an exclamation of grief, denunciation, or distress. T...
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Jack Gutknecht
Supporter
Mt 23:29 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. 30 Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’ 31 “But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started. 33 Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?” Albert Barnes has this to say about Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:32, “Fill ye up, then... - This is a prediction of what they were about to do. He would have them act out their true spirit, and show what they were, and evince to all that they had the spirit of their fathers. This was done be putting him to death, and persecuting the apostles. Guzik says about Matthew 23:32, “This is one of the most terrible sentences that ever fell from Christ’s lips. It is like his message to Judas, ‘That thou doest, do quickly,’ and Spurgeon adds, “This crowning sin would fill up the measure of their fathers’ guilt and bring down upon them the righteous judgment of God.” The New Living Translation makes it clear: “32 Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started.” Wiersbe adds, “This generation” (the “generation of vipers,” Matt. 23:33) would taste the wrath of God when the cup of iniquity was full (Gen. 15:16; Matt. 23:32). Putting it personally, Jesus was saying, using the King James Version, about “The measure - The full amount, so as to make it complete. By your slaying me, fill up what is lacking of the iniquity of your fathers until the measure is full. If you were the Son of God, wouldn't you rebuke your persecutors ever so harshly if they were about to kill you unfairly?
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