by Jacob Ninan
One day the chief priests and the elders of the Jews were questioning Jesus about His authority for doing the things He was doing. He mentioned in His reply that tax collectors and prostitutes would enter the kingdom of God before them (Matt.21:31). These two groups of people were considered by the Jewish society to be the worst of sinners, the tax collectors for working for the Roman government which was occupying Israel at that time and for extorting money from them in the name of tax. We want to see why Jesus made this amazing statement that these people had a greater chance of getting into the kingdom of God than the recognised religious leaders of the time.
The Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests, elders, etc., were people whom the ordinary Jews considered to be the favourites of God at the highest level of holiness. But the problem was that they only appeared to be so, and in fact, they did not even know God personally. Their religion consisted of external practices that could be noticed by others, but inside their minds, they were full of sin and indulgence (Matt.23:5,25). Their focus was to make sure that what other people saw about them was impressive, even tying little boxes containing scripture on their foreheads and arms to impress others about their godliness. People did not realise that while these leaders appeared to be very impressive on the outside, what God saw inside them was rottenness.
Let us look at a few examples of what they did, and as we do that, let us allow the Holy Spirit to show us if we too have such tendencies in our lives.
When finally the chief priests and the other leaders took Jesus to Pilate, the Roman Governor, he examined Jesus thoroughly and declared that Jesus had not done anything worthy of death. He understood that it was because of envy that the Jewish leaders were asking for His crucifixion (Matt.27:17,18). The religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus because He was exposing their hypocrisy, guile and lack of true knowledge of God. Also, they feared that people were going after Jesus because of the miracles He was doing. They had tried to stop Jesus, but they realised that they could not. Now they thought that the only way to avoid Jesus exposing them was to kill Him. They began planning to kill Him, at the same time protecting themselves from a backlash from the people who revered Jesus, by avoiding the festival time when great crowds were gathering in Jerusalem (Matt.26:4,5).
They paid some people to bear a false witness about Jesus so that Pilate would decide on the death sentence. In this way, they tried to avoid the appearance of killing Him and bearing false witness themselves, thinking that thus they could escape from breaking the commandments in the eyes of the people. We see here how they schemed and executed the plan so that even after they had killed Him, they could appear holy before people! After the false witnesses had given their statements before Pilate, these leaders incited the crowd to ask for crucifixion.
They killed the Son of God. They had murder in their hearts, but they took care to appear as holy men before God. They knew that Jesus was a threat to their power over the people, but they killed Him making it appear as if they were doing it for the glory of God and the safety of the Roman Empire.
Another incident we notice was when Judas felt a great remorse for betraying innocent blood and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests (Matt.27:3-7). They behaved as if it had nothing to do with them and told him to take care of his own matters. Judas threw the money into the Temple sanctuary and left. At this point, they felt that it would not be right to take this 'blood money' into the Temple offerings! They conveniently forgot that it was they who had given him this money for the blood of Jesus. They had no qualms about killing Jesus, but they were very sensitive about the holiness of the temple! Here again, what we see is their concern for external appearances, and a total callousness about what was going on in their heart and mind.
On an earlier occasion, these leaders questioned Jesus about His authority to do the things that He was doing, such as healing people on the Sabbath day (Matt.21:23-27). In reply He asked them whether they believed that the baptism which John the baptiser was doing was from God or people. We can read here how they schemed about it with concern only about how things would appear in front of people. They did not seem to bother about examining what was the truth, but it was only about political correctness and saving their own skin. They were willing to make their decisions based on expediency – what would serve their final goal – irrespective of what was right in the eyes of God. Yet these were the religious leaders who stood in front of people representing God and as examples of a godly life!
Actually, they were serving only themselves, building and protecting their own 'empire'. They had no awareness of sin or what God thought about them. If any prophet had gone to them and told them they were sinners, would they have listened? As they kept teaching people from the scriptures, would they have even considered the possibility that they could be sinners themselves? No. They considered themselves to be so holy that it was almost a sin to question them. Once after Jesus had healed a man who had been born blind, a fact they could not deny, they tried in various ways to discredit Jesus and the man. But the man himself was standing in front of them saying that he had been born blind and that now he could see because Jesus had healed him. Then they called him a sinner who had no right to question them (Jn.9:34).
What a terrible spiritual condition to be in, like these religious leaders! The fact is that we are all sinners, we have all sinned in many ways, and we deserve the judgment of God. What would happen to us if we then imagined that we were the holiest people on earth and that God was very pleased with us? These leaders imagined that they were holy because they kept the Law in an external manner, and failed to be aware of how God looked at the things that were going on inside their mind. God knows not only everything we do, but also our thoughts and intentions, and this is the God with whom we have to deal (Heb.4:12,13). Even if we are extremely careful with our external behaviour, as the Pharisees were in tithing down to the level of mint and cumin, we cannot escape from God who examines our heart.
Now we can see the difference with the tax collectors and prostitutes. These people were only too aware that they were sinners. They had no pretence of thinking that they were pleasing to God. When the hope of the Gospel was presented to them and offered them salvation, they were quick to repent and ask for forgiveness. That was their big difference from the religious leaders. That was why Jesus remarked that these sinners would be likely to enter the kingdom of God earlier than the religious leaders.
What kind of godliness do we have? Just look at why we want to be godly, to impress people or to be pleasing to God? Is our external behaviour coming forth from a heart that lives before God, or while we are careful how we appear before people we are not careful at all about what is going on inside our mind? Are we open to the voice of the Holy Spirit who corrects us when we tend to go to the right or to the left, or do we ignore it? Are we comforting ourselves with the thought that everybody thinks well about us, when God may be thinking of us as full of self-indulgenece?
If any one of you has not yet come to experience this salvation through Jesus, this is the time for you. All God wants you to do is to admit that you are a sinner who deserves the wrath of God and to turn from your sins and return to God. However great your sins may have been, there is forgiveness available because Jesus has already taken your punishment on the cross. But people who think that they are holy people who are pleasing to God, they will ultimately find that they were deceiving themselves.
What about those of us who have already received this forgiveness because of God's grace? Do we think we have become so holy that there is no more sin for us to overcome? What about our thoughts and intentions? Are we only bothered about what people think about us, or are we seeking to be purified more and more in our lives in the sight of God (2Cor.7:1)?
If we want to be truly pleasing to God we need to stop trying to impress people (Jn.5:44).
Let us allow the Holy Spirit to increasingly show us the things that we have not been aware of before and to lead us to be transformed into the image of God.