CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 23:13. Woe.—There is indignation in the word, and just denunciation; but, as Vatable long ago remarked, there is “deploration” too. There is wailing in it. It is rendered “alas!” in Revelation 18:10; Revelation 18:16; Revelation 18:19 (Morison). Hypocrites.—See note on Matthew 6:2. Shut up the kingdom of heaven.—“Up” omitted in R.V. In allusion to the symbolic “key of knowledge” given to the scribe on admission to the order. They use their keys to shut rather than to open the doors of the kingdom (Carr).
Matthew 23:14. Wanting in many MSS., including the Vatican and Sinaitic. Omitted in R.V. Seems to have been transferred from Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47, in both of which places it is genuine.
Matthew 23:15. Twofold more the child of hell.—Lit. “a son of Gehenna,” or, as Sir John Cheke has it, in most expressive slang, “a hell-imp,” i.e. one who derives his peculiarity of character from beneath (Morison). Out of bad heathens they were made worse Jews (Erasmus).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 23:13-15
The results of hypocrisy.—After the misled, the misleaders—after the too-confiding followers, the faithless guides—are admonished. And that, of course, as with greater cause, so with more manifest force. In the two verses before us now—for we follow the R.V. and other leading authorities in regarding Matthew 23:14 as not really part of the text—this is done in two principal ways. These self-deceivers are denounced, first, as being great preventers of good; secondly, as being great aggravaters of evil.
I. Preventers of good.—Hypocrisy prevents men of all classes from learning the truth. As it were, it shuts the door of truth—the very way of access thereto—the beginning of that way—in their faces (Matthew 23:13). This is true, first, of such self-deceivers themselves. How can any one who begins with deception finish with truth? He is wrong from the first. This seems to be why the Saviour said before (Matthew 5:20) “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Such “righteousness” being really unrighteousness, can only effect what unrighteousness does. It cannot help a man to find the way in. Rather, it is like shooting the bolt of a door the wrong way; a thing which necessarily, instead of opening, fastens it up. Hypocrisy also prevents other men from learning the truth. Even so far as such self-deceivers do point to the right door—and that this is true of them to some extent seems implied in Matthew 23:3—they do so in such a way as to deter those who look on. For what is it that such inquirers behold when they do? They see the manifest inconsistencies of these professed dealers in truth—how they “say and do not” (Matthew 23:3-4). They see also the real motives by which such men are moved (Matthew 23:5-7). And they judge of truth, therefore, by these professors of it, and feel equal objection to both. In the case of men not really desirous of learning the truth, the process is swift and direct. Even the semblance of an obstacle is quite sufficient to keep such reluctant ones off. In other cases, if more roundabout, it is none the less sure. Those who desire the truth are repelled by seeing the manifest untruthfulness of such teachers. Consequently they are led to reject the truth, even when it does fall from their lips. The other set never see the door, and so never go in. These men do see it indeed, but do not know what it is; and so are prevented just as effectually from availing themselves of its good.
II. Aggravaters of evil.—Hypocrisy leads to this, first, by means of the great efforts which it induces men to put forth. Those who follow such self-deceiving ways must sometimes surely have some misgivings about them. To gain others over to the same ways is a sort of testimony in their favour—sufficiently like it, in any case, to pass muster with such, and make them crave it with eagerness. On the other hand, to secure such gains is to gain also what such persons so especially value, namely, distinction and praise (Matthew 23:5, etc.). To such truly “sectarian” victors, at all sectarian “feasts,” the very “uppermost rooms” (Matthew 23:6) are assigned. Any one such conquest, therefore, is thought worthy of any amount of exertion, by those whose innermost hearts are set on such small glories as these (Matthew 23:15). Secondly, by means of the especially evil effects which result from such efforts. See, e.g., what such “proselytes” are brought to! To the same level, of course, as is occupied by those by whom they are brought. To the same hypocrisy, therefore, and self-deception; the same grievous errors both in doctrine and life; the same wilful darkness and guilt. See, on the other hand, from what they are brought. From a condition, at any rate, in which they were not committed to wrong; where they were at least open to influences for good; where the sunshine could reach them, if it happened to shine; where their moral constitution had not been damaged by the experience of a “fall.” These were the things which gave “twofold” (Matthew 23:15) seriousness to their condition and case; and which caused such perverts to go even beyond those who perverted them in wrong-doing. Thus using one’s liberty to turn it into bondage is bondage indeed! What abuse of it can be worse?
These considerations help to account for the peculiar severity of the language before us. Nothing was nearer the Saviour’s heart than the salvation of sinners. He came into the world—He gave His whole life—He submitted to death—He endured the cross—for this end. How grievous to Him, therefore, to see this work of His heart thus doubly opposed! To see those inquiring for saving truth either denied it entirely, or else taught deadly error instead! And to see this done, also, by the very hands which were commissioned, in their way, to do the very reverse! Can we wonder at His denouncing such conduct when He thought of those whom it ruined? Can we be surprised at the very depth of His mercy making Him severe on such hands? “Woe is me,” said the Apostle, “if I preach not the gospel.” Why so? Partly because of the disobedience involved in such a refusal. Partly, also, because of the exceeding cruelty involved in such silence. Something the same as would have been true of him in that case was true of the men described here. In their way, they were the pests of their day. Had He spoken of them otherwise, He would have been as cruel and as false as themselves.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 23:13. Our power to help or harm religion.—We cannot get the full force of these words of Jesus unless we remember that they were spoken to those who called themselves, and who, in some true sense were, religious men. They were hindering His work, not merely as any man might have hindered it, but also in a special way in which none but religious men, none but recognised religious teachers, could have hindered it. They were shutting Him out, not merely as any part of the wall might shut a man out, by mere passive obstinacy and hardness, but as only a door can shut a man out by a bolt, deliberately drawn across the leaves. The words of Christ suggest one truth which evidently lies at the root of the whole subject, which is that every hindrance which any Christian puts in the way of other men’s becoming Christians is associated with an imperfection in his own Christian life. “Ye neither go in yourselves,” etc.
I. I mention the look of unreasonableness which much of the way in which Christians deal with Christianity gives to their faith in the eyes of their fellow-men. Christian faith is made by many Christians to seem fantastic and unreasonable, something wholly distinct and apart from, and even contradictory to, the ordinary laws of thought and life, something that cannot be understood except by a special initiation and the use of wholly different faculties besides those which men use on other things.
II. The lack of connection that there often is between our faith and the facts and duties of our daily life. The facts and duties of life are hard but precious tests of the unseen life of character which lies behind them.
III. The lack of sympathy with the life and activity of men into which some Christians seem to be thrown by their Christian faith. If that new life of yours is really life, it ought to quicken a hundredfold your interest in all the forms of life which are to be found in all the struggling degrees of living men.
IV. Another of the dangers of Christians is lest they lose the essential loftiness of the Christian life, and make it seem to other men a sordid and unworthy thing. Have you never been tempted to value the service of Christ for the merely temporal advantages which it might bring you? Have you never made your religion a mere insurance against future punishment? etc.
V. I hesitate to speak of the doctrinal obstacle which many Christian people put in the way of other men becoming Christians, lest I may seem to fall in with the vulgar and thoughtless denial of the importance of religious dogma which we hear on every side. But one may value doctrine very highly indeed, and yet insist that the making of Christianity to be a system of doctrine is very false to the first intention of Jesus, and very harmful to men’s souls.
VI. The effort to be Christians in silence, without making any profession of faith.—Phillips Brooks, D.D.
Matthew 23:15. The blind zeal of the Pharisees.—
1. Seducers will be more busy to draw others to their err or than teachers of the truth are for drawing others to the truth.
2. The more pains in false zeal, and the more speed a man cometh in perverting others, the more measure of vengeance abideth on him.
3. The more a man do profit in the school of error and superstition, the more he is the child of hell and Satan, for the original of errors is from hell, and Satan is the father of error, superstition, and heresy.
4. Young proselytes, who drink in superstition at the persuasion of learned seducers, are far more taken with the false opinions, and more addicted to these false superstitions, than their teachers are, conceiving them to be truth, when these old deceivers do but laugh to see the credulity of the deluded. “You make them twofold more the children of hell than yourselves,” to wit, in respect of believing these errors which you teach them, for in other respects the deceivers were the elder sons of Satan.—David Dickson.